Letters from Father Christmas. J. R. R. Tolkien

      

      J.R.R. TOLKIEN

       Letters From Father Christmas

       Edited by Baillie Tolkien

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.tolkien.co.uk

       www.tolkienestate.com

      First published by George Allen & Unwin 1976

      Based on the edition first published by HarperCollinsPublishers 1999, revised 2004

      This revised edition copyright © The Tolkien Estate Limited 1976 except for previously unpublished material, which is copyright © The Tolkien Trust 1999, 2004

      ® and ‘Tolkien’® are registered trade marks of The J. R. R. Tolkien Estate Limited

      All illustrated material in this book reproduced courtesy of The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford and selected from their holdings labelled MS Tolkien Drawings 36–68; 83, folios 1–65; and 89, folio 18

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      Source ISBN: 9780007280490

      Ebook Edition © December 2010 ISBN: 9780007348176

      Version: 2020-10-19

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

1920

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

       1930

       1931

       1932

       1933

       1934

       1935

       1936

       1937

       1938

       1939

       1940

       1941

       1942

       1943

       About the Author

       Works by J.R.R. Tolkien

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      To the children of J. R. R. Tolkien, the interest and importance of Father Christmas extended beyond his filling of their stockings on Christmas Eve; for he wrote a letter to them every year, in which he described in words and pictures his house, his friends, and the events, hilarious or alarming, at the North Pole.

      The first of the letters came in 1920, when John, the eldest, was three years old; and for over twenty years, through the childhoods of the three other children, Michael, Christopher and Priscilla, they continued to arrive each Christmas. Sometimes the envelopes, dusted with snow and bearing Polar postage stamps, were found in the house on the morning after his visit; sometimes the postman brought them; and the letters that the children wrote themselves vanished from the fireplace when no one was about.

      As time went on, Father Christmas’ household became larger, and whereas at first little is heard of anyone else except the North Polar Bear, later on there appear Snow-elves, Red Gnomes, Snow-men, Cave-bears, and the Polar Bear’s nephews, Paksu and Valkotukka, who came on a visit and never went away. But the Polar Bear remained Father Christmas’ chief assistant, and the chief cause of the disasters that led to muddles and deficiencies in the Christmas stockings; and sometimes he wrote on the letters his comments in angular capitals, using a thick pen because he had a fat paw.

      Eventually Father Christmas took on as his secretary an Elf named Ilbereth, and in the later letters Elves play an important part in the defence of Father Christmas’ house and store-cellars against attacks by Goblins. These attacks would often explain why it had not been possible to fill the children's stockings with what they had wished for, instead being replaced