The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. Christopher Tolkien

and pictures, in place or reference, towards the end. This is due to no plan, but occurs simply because I failed to reduce the other illustrations to even passable shape. I was also advised that those with a geographical or landscape content were the most suitable – even apart from my inability to draw anything else.

      I now enclose 6 more.³ They all are obviously defective, and quite apart from this may, each or some, present difficulties of reproduction. Also you may be quite unwilling to consider thus belatedly any more complications, and a change of plan. So that I shall be neither pained nor surprised if you return them, all or any. . . . .

      I am yrs. truly,

      J. R. R. Tolkien.

      11 From a letter to Allen & Unwin

      5 February 1937

      [Concerning the reproduction of illustrations in The Hobbit.]

      I approve the rough prints. Reduction has improved all except ‘the Trolls’. On this there are one or two defects, probably simply due to the impression. I have marked them: the thin white outline of one of the background trees is slightly broken; some of the tiny dots outlining a flame have failed to come out; the dot after ‘Trolls.’ also.

      In the ‘Hall at Bag-End’ I misguidedly put in a wash shadow reaching right up to the side beam. This has of course come out black (with disappearance of the key) though not right up to the beam. But the print is I think as good as the original allows. Please note – these are not serious criticisms! I am still surprised that these indifferent pictures have been accepted at all, and that you have taken so much trouble with them – especially against economics (a factor I had not forgotten, and the reason for my originally forswearing illustrations).

      12 To Allen & Unwin

      [In mid-March, Tolkien returned the proofs of The Hobbit to Allen & Unwin, having marked them with a very large number of alterations to the original text. He was told that as a result he might have to pay part of the cost of correction, though the publishers noted that he had devised revisions which would occupy exactly the same space as the original text. With the following letter, he submitted a drawing for the dust-jacket, which included a runic inscription.]

      13 April 1937

      20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

      Dear Sirs,

      I return under separate cover the corrected Revises of the Hobbit, complete. . . . . I note what you so kindly say about the cost of corrections. I must pay what is just, if required; though I shall naturally be grateful for clemency. Thank you for your trouble & consideration. . . . .

      You will find with the revised proofs a draft of the jacket, for your criticism. I discovered (as I anticipated) that it was rather beyond my craft and experience. But perhaps the general design would do?

      I foresee the main objections.

      There are too many colours: blue, green, red, black. (The 2 reds are an accident; the 2 greens inessential.) This could be met, with possible improvement, by substituting white for red; and omitting the sun, or drawing a line round it. The presence of the sun and moon in the sky together refers to the magic attaching to the door.

      It is too complicated, and needs simplifying: e.g. by reducing the mountains to a single colour, and simplification of the jagged ‘fir-trees’. . . . .

      In redrawing the whole thing could be reduced – if you think the runes are attractive. Though magical in appearance they merely run: The Hobbit or There and Back Again, being the record of a year’s journey made by Bilbo Baggins; compiled from his memoirs by J. R. R. Tolkien and published by George Allen & Unwin. . . . .

      Yrs truly

      J. R. R. Tolkien.

      13 To C. A. Furth, Allen & Unwin

      [On 11 May, Allen & Unwin told Tolkien that they had interested ‘one of the outstanding firms of American publishers’ in The Hobbit, and said that this firm ‘would like a number of further illustrations in colour and suggested employing good American artists’. Allen & Unwin, however, thought ‘it would be better if all the illustrations were from your hand’.]

      13 May 1937

      20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

      Dear Mr Furth,

      Thank you for the information concerning prospective American publication. Could you tell me the name of the firm, and what are likely to be the financial arrangements?

      As for the illustrations: I am divided between knowledge of my own inability and fear of what American artists (doubtless of admirable skill) might produce. In any case I agree that all the illustrations ought to be by the same hand: four professional pictures would make my own amateurish productions look rather silly. I have some ‘pictures’ in my drawer, but though they represent scenes from the mythology on the outskirts of which the Hobbit had his adventures, they do not really illustrate his story. The only possible one is the original coloured version of Mirkwood¹ (re-drawn in black and white for ‘the Hobbit’). I should have to try and draw some five or six others for the purpose. I will attempt this, as far as time allows in the middle of term, if you think it advisable. But I could not promise anything for some time. Perhaps the matter does not allow of much delay? It might be advisable, rather than lose the American interest, to let the Americans do what seems good to them – as long as it was possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing). I have seen American illustrations that suggest that excellent things might be produced – only too excellent for their companions. But perhaps you could tell me how long there is before I must produce samples that might hope to satisfy Transatlantic juvenile taste (or its expert connoisseurs)?. . . .

      Yours sincerely

      J. R. R. Tolkien

      14 To Allen & Unwin

      [The publishers had suggested to Tolkien that The Hobbit should be published in October 1937, just after the beginning of the Michaelmas Term at Oxford. They also told him that they had forwarded his letter about illustrations (no. 13) to the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston, Massachusetts, who were to publish the book in America.]

      28 May 1937

      20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

      Dear Sirs,

      . . . . Date of publication. This is, of course, your business, and entails many considerations outside my knowledge. In any case the final decision is now, I suppose, made; and America has also to be considered. But as far as G.B. is concerned, I cannot help thinking that you are possibly mistaken in taking Oxford University and its terms into account; and alternatively, if you do, in considering early October better than June. Most of O.U. will take no interest in such a story; that part of it that will is already clamouring, and indeed beginning to add The Hobbit to my long list of never-never procrastinations. As far as ‘local interest’ is concerned it is probably at its peak (not that at its best it will amount to much reckoned in direct sales, I imagine). In any case late June between the last preparations for exams and the battle with scripts (affecting only a minority of seniors) is a quiescent interlude, when lighter reading is sought, for immediate use and for the vacation. October with the inrush of a new academic year is most distracted.

      Mr Lewis of Magdalen,¹ who reviews for the Times Literary Supplement, tells me that he has already written urging a review and claiming the book as a specialist in fairy-stories; and he is now disgruntled because he will get ‘juveniles’ that he does not want, while the Hobbit will not reach him until the vacation is over, and will have to wait till December to be read & written up properly. Also if the book had been available before the university disintegrates I could have got my friend the editor of the O.U. Magazine,² who