The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull

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СКАЧАТЬ Last Song until after Tolkien had conceived of the end of The Lord of the Rings, no later than November 1944 (see Letters, p. 104, letter to Christopher Tolkien, 29 November 1944: ‘But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Galadriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to the Grey Havens. Frodo will join them and pass over the Sea …’). But the poem was in its final form by October 1968, when Tolkien’s occasional assistant, *Joy Hill, discovered it while helping him arrange his books after he had moved from *Oxford to *Poole. On 3 September 1970 he presented the poem, with its copyright, to Joy Hill as a token of gratitude for years of friendship and service.

      In the original Houghton Mifflin issue Bilbo’s Last Song was accompanied by a gauzy photograph of a river, for mood rather than as a depiction of the poem’s events. George Allen & Unwin, London, published the poem in September 1974, also in poster form but with an illustration by *Pauline Baynes of Sam, Merry, and Pippin watching the Last Ship sail into the West. In 1990 Bilbo’s Last Song was published in book form, accompanied by three series of illustrations by Pauline Baynes: one which tells the story of Bilbo’s last days at Rivendell, his procession to the Grey Havens, and his departure for the Undying Lands; another which depicts Bilbo remembering his past adventures; and a third which tells the story of *The Hobbit. The second of these was omitted in a new edition of Bilbo’s Last Song published in 2002.

      As a poster, Bilbo’s Last Song was too slight to attract reviews, while the book version received (favourable) notice mainly for its illustrations.

      Although it is not strictly part of The Lord of the Rings, the poem was smoothly incorporated into the 1981 BBC radio production of that work (*Adaptations) by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell. It has also been set to music (see *The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle) and recorded by *Donald Swann.

Biographies. Tolkien held qualified views on biography and its uses, in particular when he was to be the subject. On 24 June 1957 he wrote in response to a request from Caroline Everett, author of an M.A. thesis on his fiction: ‘I do not feel inclined to go into biographical detail. I doubt its relevance to criticism. Certainly in any form less than a complete biography, interior and exterior, which I alone could write, and which I do not intend to write’ (Letters, p. 257) – a biography, that is, which not only recorded ‘exterior’ facts such as those found in Who’s Who, but also examined how (or whether) Tolkien’s experiences had influenced his writings. Produced by anyone other than the subject himself, such a biography in its ‘interior’ aspects could be no more than speculation (notwithstanding critics who have argued that an author is the last person to understand what he writes). Elsewhere Tolkien wrote that ‘only one’s guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author’s works’ (letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October 1958, Letters, p. 288).

      Even so, Tolkien was aware that many readers of *The Lord of the Rings were interested to know more about him, and was concerned that if facts about his life were to be reported, they should be reported accurately. In 1955 he provided information about his life and work to the columnist Harvey Breit of the New York Times Book Review, but felt that the result (‘Oxford Calling’, 5 June 1955, quoted in Letters, pp. 217–18) did not make sense. ‘Please do not blame me for what Breit made of my letter!’ he wrote to his American publisher, the Houghton Mifflin Company (*Publishers). ‘I was asked a series of questions, with a request to answer briefly, brightly, and quotably’, and he had done so (30 June 1955, Letters, p. 218).

      When the critic Gilbert Highet likewise asked for biographical material, Houghton Mifflin forwarded the request and apparently made it known that a text was needed also for their own publicity purposes. In response, Tolkien prepared a formal statement which was part biography and part comment on issues related to The Lord of the Rings, asking forgiveness if Houghton Mifflin should find it ‘obscure, wordy, and self-regarding and neither “bright, brief, nor quotable”’. The statement, contained within a letter, was printed in Letters, pp. 218–21, incorporating annotations and corrections by Tolkien made to a typescript copy. A portion was quoted earlier in the article *Tolkien on Tolkien in the Diplomat for October 1966, together with three paragraphs from a letter Tolkien had written in 1963 to Mrs Nancy Smith (provided to the magazine by the recipient), but with errors.

      Accounts of Tolkien’s life often have been marked by errors, by misinterpretations of facts, even by outright invention. On 16 January 1961, the translator Åke Ohlmarks having included biographical information in a preface to the Swedish Lord of the Rings (Sagan om ringen, 1959–61; see also *Translations), Tolkien objected that he did ‘not wish to have any biographical or critical material on myself inserted by the translator without my permission and without any consultation. The five pages of impertinent nonsense inserted by Mr Ohlmarks … could well have been spared’ (letter to Alina Dadlez, foreign rights coordinator at George Allen & Unwin, Tolkien–George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins). On 24 January 1961 he wrote again:

      I do not object to biographical notice, if it is desirable (the Dutch [translation of The Lord of the Rings] did without it). But it should be correct, and it should be pertinent. …

      Who is Who is not a safe source in the hands of foreigners ignorant of England. From it Ohlmarks has woven a ridiculous fantasy. Ohlmarks is a very vain man … preferring his own fancy to facts, and very ready to pretend to knowledge which he does not possess. He does not hesitate to attribute to me sentiments and beliefs which I repudiate. Amongst them a dislike of the University of Leeds, because it was ‘northern’ and no older than the Victorian seventies. This is impertinent and entirely untrue. [letter to Alina Dadlez, Letters, p. 305]

      Ohlmarks had also made numerous factual mistakes, such as that the Tolkien–Gordon edition of *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (1925) was first published in 1934.

      On 23 February 1966 Tolkien wrote to *W.H. Auden, who planned to write a book about him, that he regarded ‘such things as premature impertinences; and unless undertaken by an intimate friend, or with consultation of the subject (for which at present I have no time), I cannot believe that they have a usefulness to justify the distaste and irritation given to the victim. I wish at any rate that any book could wait until I produce the Silmarillion’ (Letters, p. 367). Indeed, not until *The Silmarillion was published in 1977 could one begin to appreciate Tolkien’s life’s-work, while today the biographer of Tolkien overlooks at his peril the long circuitous development of the mythology documented in *The History of Middle-earth (1983–96), as well as other works published still later.

      EARLY BIOGRAPHIES

      And yet Tolkien did not veto a book about him published in 1968 by William Ready, the former Director of Libraries at Marquette University (*Libraries and archives) to which Tolkien had sold some of his literary papers. The Tolkien Relation: A Personal Enquiry by William Ready (reprinted as Understanding Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings) is ‘personal’ in the double sense that it is one man’s view of his subject, and an enquiry into Tolkien’s life and character relative to his fiction, primarily The Lord of the Rings. Ready evidently hoped to play on his subject’s past acquaintance to gain his support and approval; and it may be that a sense of gratitude, for the interest Ready had shown in his work while at Marquette, prevented Tolkien from replying as forcefully has he had to W.H. Auden. Nevertheless he declined to supply personal information to Ready, once again citing a dislike of ‘being written about’, the results of which to that date ‘have caused me both irritation and distaste.’ And he hoped that Ready would make his treatment ‘literary (and as critical of that aspect as you like)’ rather than personal (letter to Ready, 2 February 1967, quoted in The Tolkien Relation, pp. 55–6).

      Having seen Ready’s book in print, Tolkien wrote to Clyde S. Kilby:

      Though СКАЧАТЬ