Too Many Books and Never Enough

In the meantime, Douglas C. Kane in his review in the Journal of Tolkien Research and Kristine Larsen in the journal Fafnir have said much with which we would agree about Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy, but a few more points are worth making, or re-making in our own words. In brief, the book consists of nine essays, six by Nancy Bunting alone or co-written with Seamus Hamill-Keays, and three by Toby Widdicombe. Of the former group, five are revised and expanded from versions published in Beyond Bree or Lembas, and one by Bunting, ‘The Interlace of Autobiography and Faërian Imagery in Smith of Wootton Major’, is new to the volume. The essays by Widdicombe are also new, though he briefly made some similar points five years ago in his J.R.R. Tolkien: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Our immediate response to Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy as a whole is that we fail to see how it in any way celebrates Tolkien’s legacy – whatever ‘legacy’ may mean. The essays are part of a legacy of critical attitudes, maybe. Our own criticism of Bunting and Hamill-Keays’ work, in journals and in their biography of Edith Tolkien which we reviewed for the Journal of Tolkien Research, has been that although they are industrious and sometimes very useful in their research, as into the history of the Tolkien family or of Birmingham, some of the conclusions they draw are questionable, with likelihoods given weight they may not deserve and assumptions translated into fact.

Bunting tries to deflect similar criticism of Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy by arguing in favour of ‘critical thinking that weighs the probabilities or likelihood that the claims or conclusions are true and relevant and then evaluates the context created by new explanations or implications of previously assumed “facts”’ (p. xx). Our philosophy – call it old-fashioned – is that one should state facts when there is a weight of evidence behind them or they reasonably can be accepted as truth, as when they are given by a trusted source. But a likelihood is not a fact: it is conditional unless and until evidence for factuality comes to light, and is subject to personal opinion, experience, and preference. A ‘may be true’ should not become ‘true’ because it is probably true, and still less should matters be treated as established fact if argued only on the basis of likelihood.

Of greater concern in Celebrating Tolkien’s Legacy are two of the essays by Toby Widdicombe. In the first, ‘For Want of a Biography, the Story Was Lost’, he takes issue with Tolkien’s biographers, nearly all of them, including Scull and Hammond (for our J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide). His chief target is Humphrey Carpenter – poor Humphrey, on whom has rained no end of brickbats for his still serviceable 1977 Biography, only some of them deserved. Widdicombe states that in our Chronology we underline ‘how much Carpenter left out and as a result how much later retellings of Carpenter’s story have missed. Scull and Hammond even seem, paradoxically (and certainly unfairly), to blame those many biographers who came after Carpenter for being unable to find anything beyond the already known in Tolkien’s life’ (p. 86). To take the last claim first: we do not blame (some of) Carpenter’s successors for being unable to find anything new, but for doing little more than paraphrasing Carpenter’s account with no new research.

As for Carpenter leaving things out, one must understand that his biography was never meant to be exhaustive, in the way that many biographies are today – there on our shelf, waiting to be read, is Ron Chernow’s biography of Mark Twain, nearly 1200 pages – but few were that extensive in the 1970s, and for Tolkien it was not wanted, by his family or his publisher. Carpenter’s first draft was too long, and cut back to suit. The result deliberately emphasizes Tolkien’s role as the creator of Middle-earth, as this aspect was, as it still is, of most interest to a general reader. At the same time, Carpenter cannot be blamed for omitting information from, say, First World War records and certain Oxford University papers which, in his day, were under time-embargo and unavailable to any researcher. But he did have full access to Tolkien’s papers, including the most private of them, a fact Widdicombe questions, by no means a ‘dodgy ground’ (p. 94) for our view that such access is one reason why Carpenter’s biography should be preferred to Daniel Grotta’s.

Widdicombe finds it ‘unhelpful of Scull and Hammond not to be clearer about what papers of Tolkien’s they did and did not have access to, but the Chronology (if you read it carefully) has levels of access to them that are strictly dependent on what Christopher Tolkien is willing to show them’ (p. 94). This is a false assumption. In regard to the Bodleian Tolkien Papers – we also used many other collections – we have seen most of those that are ‘unrestricted’ (an informal category: these are still subject to permission to view from the Tolkien Estate, in addition to the Bodleian’s general admission requirements). We have also seen some of the ‘restricted’ papers, permitted on a case by case basis, and are not alone among Tolkien scholars to have done so. It was never a matter of Christopher being willing to let us see them; and although he retained some of his father’s papers, and was especially protective of the letters between his parents and of his father’s diaries, either he or the Bodleian’s Tolkien Archivist provided answers from them when we had specific questions.

In all cases having to do with the Tolkien Papers, we have recognized boundaries and abided by them. This has not been onerous, and is not unusual when dealing with archives, which often must be controlled to protect materials from overuse or mishandling, especially archives like Tolkien’s which attract fan curiosity as well as scholarly interest. It is always a challenge for keepers of rare, sometimes fragile materials to balance access, physical preservation, and confidentiality. Much as we would like to have unrestricted access to Tolkien’s papers, we have never demanded it, as Widdicombe does in his essay. In return for following the rules – for being courteous – and for doing what most have thought good work, we have enjoyed decades of trust from Christopher, from his family, and from library and archives staff.

Widdicombe also claims that we fail to give sources for our statements in the Companion and Guide, in particular when dealing with materials in the Bodleian. In fact, for quotations from the ‘unrestricted’ papers we give Bodleian shelfmarks as a group at the end of Reader’s Guide, volume 2 (2017). We omit citations to quoted ‘restricted’ papers deliberately, because they are restricted and their reference numbers are not public record. More generally, if we had wanted to give sources for information in the Companion and Guide beyond quotations, we would have needed at least another volume. Also, we did not want to encumber our text with too many citations, so that even a ‘reference book’ like ours could be read for pleasure or with concentrated attention. We suppose that this is ‘unhelpful’ (Widdicombe, p. 94) in a way; we ourselves sometimes wonder where Carpenter found certain pieces of information. But again, Carpenter’s biography was aimed at an audience of non-specialists, who typically object to ‘apparatus’.

Passing over Widdicombe’s workmanlike second essay, ‘Tolkien as Forgotten Utopian’, one comes to his third, ‘Christopher Tolkien as Editor: The Perils of Kinship’. Even if Christopher had not been our friend and for many years a champion of our work, we would take offense when Widdicombe declares him unworthy as a guardian and editor of his father’s writings, and belittles his Bodleian Medal as given ‘less for the quality of his work as editor and more in recognition of the Tolkien family’s bequest of much of its [sic] father’s manuscripts to the Bodleian in 1979 and with thanks for a job persistently done’ (p. 279), and nitpicks that Christopher used too many commas, and sentences with too many statements.

His essay indicts Christopher as ill-trained to edit his father’s works. In a manner which strikes us as petty, Widdicombe dismisses Christopher’s academic work in Icelandic and Chaucer studies, in part because (as with Nevill Coghill on Chaucer) he worked with others, and he questions Christopher’s teaching qualifications because he had ‘only a Third Class B.A. and a B.Litt.’ (p. 280). In fact, Christopher was much in demand as a tutor, and he was a popular speaker; his lack of a doctorate (as Widdicombe implies, admitting that the elder Tolkien also did not have one) is beside the point. Despite what Widdicombe might think of him, Christopher was an experienced scholar, he was the person most knowledgeable about Tolkien’s writings and literary intentions, and his father trusted him with his papers.

Widdicombe asserts that in naming him his literary executor, Tolkien put Christopher

in an unenviable, even impossible, position. He needed to be both the guardian of his father’s legacy and the editor of another man’s literary achievement – a role in which disinterestedness should be writ large. One is powered by love and duty; the other by a wish to judge and preserve an achievement. And a third concern, unusual for most academic publishing, hovers at the edge of sight: profit. The family and its publishers make money – sometimes considerable sums – off every new Tolkien book . . . [p. 281]

This leads to the view that the volume of Tolkien’s translations, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo, is an editorial ‘mishmash’ or ‘a rather confused salmagundi’, with faults such as the lack of an explanation by Christopher for how he decided on his interpretation of his father’s words. ‘Such an explanation is de rigueur in textual editing – as Christopher Tolkien would or should have known’ (p. 282). Does Widdicombe not understand that the edition of Sir Gawain, etc., though (in the event) used by scholars, was not intended primarily for that audience?

The essay then proceeds with criticisms of:

❧  Christopher’s approach to preparing The Silmarillion, which is ‘Christopher Tolkien’s version of his father’s legendarium with no ability to examine it in an unmediated way’ (p. 286). Widdicombe quibbles that the title of the book should have been, more accurately, The Silmarillion and Other Writings because it contains disparate material, not all of which is strictly part of The Silmarillion, and he complains that when Christopher introduced the second edition of The Silmarillion in 1999 he failed to provide information about which manuscripts he used ‘or where his father’s intention [for the book] was made clear (orally or in writing), or, indeed, when’ (p. 286). Did Christopher really have an obligation to do so, in a work intended as a continuous narrative for general readers? Subsequent books, beginning with Unfinished Tales in 1980, would be aimed at a more specialized audience wanting to explore Tolkien’s creation (the creation itself, and its author’s method of creation) in greater depth, and in these Christopher paid more attention to details such as Widdicombe wants to read, if not to excess, again considering the market for the title.

❧  The editing of Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien with Humphrey Carpenter (1981). Widdicombe makes the remarkable claim that ‘the general public would have snapped up a multi-volume Complete Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien almost without a second thought’ (p. 288). This was not true in 1981, though probably would be today.*  Tolkien was popular, but not that popular.†  Widdicombe rejects Carpenter’s explanation that letters were omitted or shortened for space or to focus on Tolkien as the creator of Middle-earth, arguing that Christopher and the Tolkien family instead ‘wanted to create a particular image of their famous father and grandfather’. Space was, in fact, a consideration, because the cost of printing and binding was (as always, as for our own books) a consideration for the publisher, relative to expected sales. Widdicombe also dismisses the editors’ decision to omit letters ‘highly personal in character’, notably most of those by Tolkien to Edith Bratt, and to truncate letters ‘for reasons of discretion’. ‘What sorts of discretion are we talking about?’ Widdicombe asks (p. 288), to which the short answer is, it is none of his business, though it’s easy to imagine Tolkien (or anyone, really) making personal remarks about someone in a private letter he would not want to have published, and his heirs would not want to have published, and his publishers would not want to include, to spare the feelings of a living subject, or of that person’s heirs.‡

❧  The conception and design of The History of Middle-earth. Widdicombe questions the series as a whole – ‘lightly, but intrusively, edited’ he says (p. 293) – but focuses mainly on Christopher’s foreword to The Book of Lost Tales, Part One. He queries even why The Book of Lost Tales was issued in two volumes: was there an ulterior motive, ‘an effort to do so at less cost and with greater potential profit?’ (p. 293). Less cost, yes, because Allen & Unwin worried that, as a more specialized work, even more so than Unfinished Tales which included ‘outtakes’ from The Lord of the Rings, it would have limited appeal. A good analogue would be The Lord of the Rings, divided into three volumes to spread the cost (or production and purchase), of which fewer copies were printed of The Fellowship of the Ring to limit loss if it sold poorly.

❧  The writing of the post-History ‘Great Tales’ volumes, beginning with The Children of Húrin. Again, for these, Widdicombe finds Christopher to be a weak editor, and gives him posthumous advice as if Widdicombe were a professor marking an undergraduate paper: ‘a little more care with comma usage and parallel construction would work wonders for clarity’ (p. 297).

Widdicombe argues that there is a ‘persistent problem of access to manuscripts [by Tolkien] as well as restrictions on any right to publish’ (pp. 297–8). He complains that with papers in the control of the Tolkien Estate and libraries like the Bodleian, we cannot know what manuscripts exist, where they are housed, or ‘what we [as scholars] will be allowed to publish without (undue) interference as the Tolkien family’s right of veto is absolute’ (p. 298). Nor will he accept ‘mediated’ access to the papers, as published in books. What would be a practical alternative? None is proposed, unless it is to be the same as the plan (or fantasy, as he admits) that Widdicombe describes in his first essay, partly in regard to making it possible for a new and better biography of Tolkien to be written, without restrictions:

digitize the entire Bodleian collection of Tolkien’s papers according to a reasonable schedule and ask the Tolkien Estate to fund it. After all, the family has become fabulously wealthy off the genius of one man, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. While you’re at it include the materials housed in Special Collections at Marquette University and those the Tolkiens have themselves held back. [p. 97]

It seems safe to say that anyone who takes this line of righteous entitlement – and Widdicombe is not the first to do so – will find it hard to gain the ‘unmediated’ access he wants. Neither will he endear himself to the Tolkien family by calling Christopher Tolkien’s decades-long and widely admired achievement ‘crooked’, or wishing ‘that the Tolkien Estate had allowed other, disinterested and more capable, scholars’ to do his job (p. 299). It hardly needs saying that we do not sympathize with his views. But we must add that the Tolkien Estate have in fact, for many years, generously supported processing of the Tolkien Papers and Tolkien studies in general, rightfully by their own choice and on their own terms.

 

One can learn most of these facts from Carpenter’s biography, and not much more. Why was this? Carpenter himself was not a Catholic, indeed he was not a believer at the time he wrote his book, though his father had been the Anglican Bishop of Oxford. He might have felt ill-equipped to deal with Tolkien’s Catholicism; more likely, matters of faith were skirted over for the same reason that Tolkien’s long academic career was not given anything close to its full due, to keep the biography somewhat short and general (its first edition runs to only some three hundred pages). When Raymond Edwards’ Tolkien appeared in 2014, we were pleased to find that a biographer at last had devoted a section to ‘Tolkien the Catholic’, though only an appendix. Now we see that this is meagre, only nine pages, and is mainly concerned with the influence of Tolkien’s religion on his fiction; in fact, we ourselves have dealt with the same subject at greater length in our article ‘Religion’ in The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide.

Holly Ordway’s Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography (Word on Fire Academic, 2023) demonstrates how much more there is to know about Tolkien as a Catholic, and a Christian. Since Ordway herself is a convert from Anglicanism to Catholicism, she brings to her book a personal sympathy with Tolkien. She has also lived for a time in England and worshiped at some of the same churches that Tolkien attended. But it is her scholarship, and the depth and breadth of her research, which most recommend her work as an essential volume in Tolkien studies.

As she writes in her introduction, ‘there has been, to date, no full biographical treatment that presents Tolkien’s faith in detail. As a result, it has been all too easy simply to overlook the significance of his religious life, to allow unexamined historical or cultural assumptions to color our view of it, or to view it as a purely private expression of his personality’ (pp. 4–5). Tolkien’s Faith, as Ordway makes clear, is not a ‘full biographical treatment’ of Tolkien, nor is it an analysis of his writings, but rather an account of the development of religion in his life, with family, friends, and events brought into the picture as needed. This development, Ordway remarks, was ‘a constant process of growth and maturation’ (p. 9), which she follows more or less chronologically.

Tolkien’s Faith is thus an adjunct to a general biography of Tolkien, like Carpenter’s or Edwards’, filling gaps Tolkien enthusiasts may not have known existed. We ourselves, neither Catholics nor practising Christians, did not realize how much more there was to know about Tolkien and his religion. We were interested to learn, for instance, as we might never have considered, that Tolkien was not received into the Church on his mother’s conversion, as he was, at eight years old, above the ‘age of reason’. It was, therefore, always his own decision to become a Catholic and then to remain in the Church. Unfortunately, we still do not know, and perhaps cannot know unless there is something to be learned in private family papers, what Mabel Tolkien’s thoughts were as she considered converting to Catholicism. She must have communicated them at least to her sister, as May Incledon herself became a Catholic, if only briefly, returning to the Anglican Church at the order of her husband.

Tolkien’s Faith is a heavy volume, nearly five hundred pages, with nothing extraneous. Although Ordway’s exploration of Tolkien’s religious life is occasionally interrupted by history lessons – attitudes towards Catholics in English society and law, for example, and the establishment of the Birmingham Oratory – these are pertinent and entertaining. Particularly helpful are explanations of the Catholic liturgy, practices, and prayers; on one page, for instance, Ordway discusses (as notes) the logic of the Immaculate Conception and the dogma of Mary’s Assumption. An appendix provides relevant texts in both Latin and English, and a glossary defines important terms, from absolution to worship.

The publisher of Tolkien’s Faith kindly sent us a review copy on publication. Our work on Tolkien’s Collected Poems, and other matters, unfortunately delayed giving our views of the book until now. It seems unfair that although we were able to refer to Ordway while completing work on the Poems, she was not able to have the Poems in advance of her book, so that she could refer to the full texts of Magna Dei Gloria and Consolatrix Afflictorum (Stella Vespertina) rather than only their titles. We have no doubt that Tolkien’s Faith will continue to be useful to us, and were glad to see it cited recently by Ben Reinhard in The High Hallow: Tolkien’s Liturgical Imagination (Emmaus Road Publishing, 2025), though we may have been first to do so in the Poems.

* Sales of the original edition of Letters were not good. Reportedly ninety-two per cent of the American edition went unsold and were pulped. Rayner Unwin’s conclusion, as told to us, was that books of letters ‘do not sell’. There was no paperback edition of Letters attempted until 1995, when HarperCollins decided that the time was right. And contrary to Widdicombe (p. 300, n. 2), the expanded index to Letters did not appear until the reprint of 1999, a revision of one we had made for our own use, the 1981 index being far from sufficient.

† Nor was Tolkien ‘a millionaire when he died’ (p. 288). There is an erroneous claim online that he was worth $50 million at his death in ‘1972’ (he died on 2 September 1973). As reported in January 1974, the value of his estate after probate and payment of death duties was £144,159, or around US$354,000.

‡ Widdicombe blames Christopher for omissions in the 1981 Letters, asking: ‘How much more satisfactory a collection of letters might we have had without the “assistance” of Tolkien’s son?’ (p. 289). ‘Satisfactory’ by whose definition? Factors of length and cost would have been the same regardless of whoever edited the book.