Tolkien Estate blocks new Tolkien book

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Even by Tolkien's day, academics were reading authors' letters and private diaries for relevance to the written work and for understanding of the creative process. One doesn't have to be sympathetic to psychoanalytic criticism to understand this. It would have been naive of Tolkien to believe that his letters would be irrelevant to his readers or have no bearing on his art; indeed many of his letters clearly demonstrate his intense desire to explain his work. It was not generous of the Estate to allow publication of the selected letters; it was part of the responsibility of a literary executor to allow for such scholarship.

I can see your point. However, all Tolkien's letters were not an explanation or a discussion of his public writings or the creative process involved. Does the mere fact that he was a writer strip away the man's privacy regarding personal letters that have no bearing on his "public" life, especially when he cannot now voice his opinion on the matter?