请输入您要查询的百科知识:

 

词条 The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
释义

  1. Categories

  2. Notable topics

     Nazi racial politics  War 

  3. Footnotes

  4. External links

{{Use British (Oxford) English|date=December 2010}}{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2010}}{{Infobox book
| name = The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
| title_orig =
| translator =
| image = Tolkien Letters Cover.jpg
| caption = Dust wrapper of UK first edition
| author = Humphrey Carpenter (editor), with Christopher Tolkien
| illustrator =
| cover_artist =
| country = United Kingdom
| language = English
| series =
| genre = Letters
| subject = J. R. R. Tolkien
War
Tolkien's legendarium
| publisher = George Allen & Unwin, Houghton Mifflin
| release_date = 1981
| english_release_date =
| media_type =
| pages =
| isbn = 0-04-826005-3
| dewey= 828/.91209 B 19
| congress= PR6039.O32 Z48 1981b
| oclc= 8628512
| preceded_by = Unfinished Tales
| followed_by = Mr. Bliss
}}

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The selection contains 354 letters, dating between October 1914, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford, and 29 August 1973, four days before his death.

Categories

The letters can be roughly divided in four categories:

  1. Personal letters to Tolkien's wife Edith, to his son Christopher Tolkien and his other children,
  2. Letters about Tolkien's career as a professor of Anglo-Saxon
  3. Letters to his publishers at Allen & Unwin explaining his failing to meet the deadline and related topics
  4. Letters about Middle-earth

The last category is especially of interest to Tolkien fans, as it provides a lot of information about Middle-earth which cannot be found anywhere in the works published by Tolkien himself.

Notable topics

Nazi racial politics

In letters 29 and 30, it appears that a German translation of The Hobbit was being negotiated in 1938. The German firm enquired whether Tolkien was of Arisch (Aryan) origin. Tolkien was infuriated by this, and wrote two drafts of possible replies for his publisher to choose.[1] The first one is not present – in it Tolkien is assumed to have refused to give any declaration whatsoever of his racial origins. The second, surviving, draft included:

{{Quote|Thank you for your letter ... I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people.|Tolkien|The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, #30 (Emphasis in original)}}

War

A former signals officer at the Battle of the Somme, Tolkien frequently expressed his great dislike for war, whatever the cause. This is evident in a great many letters which he wrote during the Second World War to his son Christopher, which often invoke a sense of gloom. Notable among these is his reaction to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, in which he refers to the bombmakers of the Manhattan Project as "lunatics" and "Babel builders".

Footnotes

{{Portal|Middle-earth}}
1. ^Humphrey Carpenter: The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, Editorial comments at the head of Letter 30.

External links

  • {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606024118/http://mysite.verizon.net/aznirb/mtr/lettersfaq.html/ |date=6 June 2013 |title=Tolkien Letters FAQ }}
  • The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien on Tolkien Library (Description and Reviews)
  • [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcF8TinIInI The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien video]
{{Middle-earth}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Letters Of J. R. R. Tolkien, The}}

9 : Collections of works by J. R. R. Tolkien|Essays by J. R. R. Tolkien|Middle-earth books|J. R. R. Tolkien|1981 books|Tolkien studies|Books published posthumously|Collections of letters|Allen & Unwin books

随便看

 

开放百科全书收录14589846条英语、德语、日语等多语种百科知识,基本涵盖了大多数领域的百科知识,是一部内容自由、开放的电子版国际百科全书。

 

Copyright © 2023 OENC.NET All Rights Reserved
京ICP备2021023879号 更新时间:2024/9/22 16:33:01