New Tolkien Letter discovered

[Mithalwen]

I would think it quite likely that there are many letter out there given that Tolkien was a child of the letter writing age - yes there was a time when the post was a reliable and swift form of communication! Many people do routinely keep letters and many more would keep one from someone of significance. Of course it doesn't follow that many of these letters would have any great significance but I am sure many people would like such a personal thing as a handwritten letter even if it were querying a gas bill!

[Orominuialwen]

Not everybody who takes something to Antiques Roadshow is going to sell it. When the show (the US version) came to where I live, my family took a quilt we have that was made for my great grandmother when she was born, but we had no intention of selling it, even if it turned out to be very valuable. We were just curious to see what sort of thing we owned.

[davem]

Well the episode of Antiques Roadshow has just aired. It was a difficult job, but having taped it & looked at it frame by frame, I could make out a good part of the first side of the letter. It was accompanied by a typed slip, which contains an apology for the delay in sending it - from the address it seems he wrote it on July 26th, but didn’t post it till Sept 22nd(!)

On the slip there seems to be a reference to his ‘niggling’ - & he even tells the recipient about his story Leaf by Niggle ‘published in the Dublin Review of Jan 1945.

The letter seems to be the original of the one to Miss J Burn (no 191) of which we only have a draft in the book.

The address is (illegible - to me - word)

I don’t know what city(?)! Found in a pile - 22 Sept 1956
July 26th 1956

Dear Miss Burn

Thankyou for your most kind & appreciative letter. I have not been able to answer before as I have been away. I could not explain how the story grew in anyhing less tahn autobiography.

As for Frodo’s failure - it was absolute & complete & inevitable. If you reconsider all that is said about the Ring you will see that it was simply impossible that he should voluntarily surrender or resolve to damage it let alone destroy it at the last.

That his Quest was ‘humanly speaking’ altogether vain & doomed to disaster.. quite apart from the pysical dangers & obstacles...really apparent from the beginning.The good cause was in fact saved by pity & forgiveness...(something) against all (evidence? endurance?) Gandalf foresaw this - see vol 1 pp 68-69