Read Online The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien by Humphrey Carpenter - Free Book Online

publication without your approval. So I submit two drafts of possible answers.
30 To Rütten & Loening Verlag
    [One of the ‘two drafts’ mentioned by Tolkien in the previous letter. This is the only one preserved in the Allen & Unwin files, and it seems therefore very probable that the English publishers sent the other one to Germany. It is clear that in that letter Tolkien refused to make any declaration of ‘arisch’ origin.]
    25 July 1938
    20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
    Dear Sirs,
    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. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject – which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule inmatters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.
    Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its suitability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my
Abstammung
. 1
    I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and
    remain yours faithfully
    J. R. R. Tolkien.
31 To C. A. Furth, Allen & Unwin
    [Among the stories that Tolkien showed to his publishers during 1937, as a possible successor to
The Hobbit,
was a short version of
Farmer Giles of Ham
. Allen & Unwin liked it, but felt that it would need the companionship of other stories to make it into a book of sufficient length. They also, of course, encouraged Tolkien to write the sequel to
The Hobbit
.]
    24 July 1938
    20 Northmoor Road, Oxford
    Dear Mr Furth,
    The Hobbit
ought to have come out this year not last. Next year I should have probably had time and mood for a follower. But pressure of work as a ‘research fellow’, which has to be wound up if possible by September, has taken all my time, and also dried up invention. The sequel to
the Hobbit
has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favour, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel – Bilbo ‘remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long’: a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link. For another nearly all the ‘motives’ that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either ‘thinner’ or merely repetitional. For a third: I am personally immensely amused by hobbits as such, and can contemplate them eating and making their rather fatuous jokes indefinitely; but I find that is not the case with even my most devoted ‘fans’ (such as Mr Lewis, and ? Rayner Unwin). Mr Lewis says hobbits are only amusing when in unhobbitlike situations. For a last: my mind on the ‘story’ side is really preoccupied with the ‘pure’ fairy stories or mythologies of the
Silmarillion,
into which even Mr Baggins got dragged against my original will, and I do not think I shall be able to move much outside it – unless it is finished (and perhaps published) – which has a releasing effect.