The Collection Grows

[Child of the 7th Age]

We haven't heard from Samwise in a while. I had to scramble over to the second page to find and retrieve this collectibles thread.

This topic isn't exactly appropriate for Mirth, but I didn't know where else to put it. (I don't think crying is allowed in this Forum so please excuse if I shed a gentle tear.) This evening I saw a collectible on e-bay that was so extraordinary I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. For a mere $15,000 you can purchase a detailed eight page letter from Tolkien written in 1947 to another professor at Oxford in which JRRT discusses languages and their relation to society. Click here for ebay listing.

The letter is typescript and single spaced and seems to be packed with annotations in Tolkien's own hand. The snippet that they quote from this gem seems intriguing in that it shows Tolkien as being more sympathetic to change than sometimes thought, at least in the sphere of linguistic development.

I always reply that I have no concern with 'correctness' not as an adjudicater or arbiter, which I am not: though, of course, I am interested in the idea of correctness, which is an important and interesting phenomenon in itself. And my advice is always do as you please! Then, if you happen to be in the coming fashion, or can make it, you will become 'correct'. If not, not. And this reply seems as a rule to be sufficiently novel, even startling, to maintain my reputation for wisdom. For the idea that there is somewhere deposited a correct answer on all linguistic questions or divergences that somebody knows (if he can be induced to speak) seems deeply implanted. If the King no longer controls English, then there must be a Cabinet that does. And many people do me the unwarranted honour of supposing that I must be a member. I am not. I am a linguistic historian, of scientific outlook... and a poet.... '

My frustration is twofold. First, I do not have a spare $15,000 to purchase this letter. If I did, I would buy it and donate it to the collection at Marquette or another suitable repository. That brings me to my second frustration. I am an avid collector of many things Tolkien, but there are some collectibles so marvelous and unique that they simply should not be in private hands. ( I would, of course, exclude personal material that remains in the hands of the author's own kin who may choose or not to release such items. As a letter sent to another academic, however, this particular item does not fall into this group.)

This letter may be snarfed up by a well-to-do private collector and that is the last we will ever see of it, never to know what is on those other seven pages. Or, if we are lucky, it will be purchased by a dealer in rare books and manuscripts and will ultimately be resold in a larger venue and perhaps eventually make its way to a library or other public collection.

I guess what I am saying is that something like this belongs in a "mathom house" where anyone can come and read it instead of tucked away in someone's bureau or safety deposit box. The Baggins family obviously understood this when their mithril coat was donated to the local mathom house.