Tolkien Letter About Language Sold

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't how long this will still be up, because the sale is over, but there is an eight-page letter by Tolkien that was put up for sale on ebay (for the tidy figure of $19,500). Remarkably, they have legible pictures of all eight pages posted on the page, so check it out if you are interested.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... otohosting

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Neat!

I have to take a closer look at that.

BrianIs AtYou

[ArathornJax]

I wonder if he was writing that to Mr. TOM Riddle (you know, he that should not be named from another book series)?

Nice find, and interesting.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Another interesting letter of Tolkien's up for sale:

Lot Details

Here's an article about the auction:

Littlehampton Professor's Tolkien letter rings up auction bids

Thanks to visualweasel at TORN for the heads up about this.

[Tyrhael]

Woohoo! I am always pleased to see a new piece handwritten by Tolkien, as his sometimes calligraphic / sometimes illegible scrawls are rather intoxicating to view. I'm saving up on my computer pictures of every Tolkien handwriting-piece found online (Sothebys, Christies, etc.) or scanned from books I own so I can (when I find the time) 'study' the trends of how he wrote certain letters or letter combinations/clusters so I can better understand any holographic material I come across whenever I visit Marquette, particularly non-English stuff. That may prove too ambitious an undertaking, however, and it may be that his handwriting patterns changed over time.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It certainly can't hurt. And just think, when you are done at Marquette, you can go to the Bodleian!

[Tyrhael]

Bodleian? I seriously doubt I'd be allowed access.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'd say that after next April you might have a better shot at it than I would.

[MithLuin]

The "Tom Riddle" idea was the first thought I had, too. We're incorrigible! Just in case the ebay pictures go away soon (and one of them is a bit blurry anyway):

10 January, 1947.

Dear Mr. Riddle,

Five months may seem a long time to wait between your letter and enclosed paper, of 10 August, and my reply. I hope you will forgive it, and the inadequacy of the eventual answer.

You letter arrived in the middle of the so called 'vacation', naturally[?] at a time of difficult and pressing business, followed by a brief holiday (ten days), and more work, during a period of great dislocation. I have been unwell off and on, especially since the beginning of the current vacation, when I had hoped to clear off some arrears[?]. The Professor of E. Lang. and Lit. is the target for a good many such slings and arrows as you use. Though fortunately not all are as searching and deadly. For the most part they concern only such minor matters as the 'correct' pronunciation of, say, rations; or the 'correct' plural of spoonful (spoonfuls or spoonsful).

I always reply that I have no concern with 'correctness' -- not as an adjudicator or arbiter, which I am not; though, of course, I am interested in the idea of correctness, which is an important and interesting phenomenon in itself, and my advice is always: Do as you please! Then, if you happen to be in the coming fashion, or can make it, you will become 'correct'. If not, not. And this reply seems, as a rule, to be sufficiently novel, even startling, to maintain my reputation for wisdom. For the idea that there is somewhere deposited a correct answer on all linguistic questions or divergences, that somebody knows (if he can be induced to speak), seems deeply implanted. If the King no longer controls English, then there must be a Cabinet that does. And many people do me the unwarranted honour of assuming that I must be a member. I am not. I am a linguistic historian, of scientific outlook, in part; and for the rest, a specialist in Anglo-Saxon, and Medieval English; and a poet.

However, I cannot fob you off with such an answer. You know all that; and err if at all rather in the other extreme, to a liberalism not without a tendency to anarchism. The trouble is that I really have not the time to deal with your paper as it deserves, and as my delay would seem to demand. But at any rate I suppose that it is better than mere silence to say that I have received it. Also I would like to keep the copy that you sent me, if I may.

Your paper interested me as a piece of evidence, coming from outside professional circles, concerning contemporary 'speech-feeling' on this rather difficult point. For this affair of the 'split infinitive' -- and such it is, my dear sir, protest how you will -- belongs to a class of phenomena in linguistic development that, like comets and eclipses, during the lifetime of a scientist seldom come under his direct observation: shifts in the actual speech-feeling of a language. It is plain that one is taking place in English in this matter at the present time, so that there is a disturbance in the speech-feeling, which is no longer uniform, with the consequence that there is inevitably a certain amount of friction (engendering heat). And also with the consequence under modern conditions that persons with undisturbed and disturbed speech-feeling both grope for defensive 'reasons', usually without sufficient knowledge historical or theoretical for discovering any.

The thing will, of course, solve itself -- all the sooner, the less . . .

Well, there is page 1, at any rate, in case the image vanishes into the ether soon. I think it very amusing (and so thoroughly Tolkien-like) that he begins with an apology for the delay and an excuse about his health. This must have practically written itself, eventually. I suppose there are enough clues here about date and content that if the paper were ever published, it could have been tracked down. Then we could resolve the 'Tom Riddle or not Tom Riddle?' question

As for the content, he's just barely gotten started, but I do have to remark that this 'great disturbance in the Force' is amusing.



Well, so far google has turned up two Prof. Riddles. One is too recent, but one was publishing in the 1940's. Problem is - they were both Americans (a Donald and a John, for the curious). The seller on ebay suggested the recipient of this letter was a fellow Oxford professor, though I wouldn't have guessed that from the intro. Oxford University Press is doing my search no favors at all.

And I have now found a Prof. Riddle at Oxford, but too early - 1850.

[solicitr]

And this reply seems, as a rule, to be sufficiently novel, even startling, to maintain my reputation for wisdom. For the idea that there is somewhere deposited a correct answer on all linguistic questions or divergences, that somebody knows (if he can be induced to speak), seems deeply implanted. If the King no longer controls English, then there must be a Cabinet that does. And many people do me the unwarranted honour of assuming that I must be a member.

What a funny, funny man T could be! I laughed out loud reading this passage.

[N.E. Brigand]

I don't how long this will still be up, because the sale is over, but there is an eight-page letter by Tolkien that was put up for sale on ebay...

By the way, this typed letter was previously auctioned (with another handwritten letter) by Christie's in 2002:
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_ ... ID=4036986

That old auction page mixes them up, however.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's interesting.