98 To Stanley Unwin

[Unwin's elder son David – the children's writer 'David Severn' – had read Tolkien's story 'Leaf by Niggle' in the Dublin Review, where it was published in January 1945. He commended it to his father, calling it an 'exquisite piece of work', and suggested that it be published in a volume along with other short stories by Tolkien. Stanley Unwin passed this suggestion to Tolkien.]

[Undated; circa 18 March 1945]

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Unwin,

I have written several imaginary letters to you, and half an actual one, in the past few months, before I got your note of 24 February. Especially I have meant to enquire after Rayner. I hope you have good news of him. The R.A.F, cadets of his course seem all to have had a wretched time since, but the Navy is rather less irrational and wasteful; so he may have been spared some of the worse squalors and frustrations now inflicted (too often quite unnecessarily) on young men.

Also my third son, Christopher, has been for a long time at Standerton in the Transvaal, and there one of his great friends has been Chris Unwin..... My boy, I hear today, is 'In Transit' for England, after a year and a quarter away, so I hope Unwin is too. Certainly they were still together on March 3rd. But already one of the group has been killed, in his first flight in a Hurricane, my boy's stable-companion, and the one who came out top of the Course. And there you have one of the explanations of my unproductiveness and (seeming) neglect. My heart is gnawed out with anxiety. And anyway my Christopher was my real primary audience, who has read, vetted, and typed all of the new Hobbit, or The Ring, that has been completed. He was dragged off in the middle of making maps. I have squandered almost the only time I have had to spare for writing in continuing our interrupted conversations by epistle: he occupied the multiple position of audience, critic, son, student in my department, and my tutorial pupil! But he has received copies of all the chapters I wrote in a spun last year. Since when I have been more than ever burdened, or the ratio between duty and weariness has been more unfavourable.....

Since you have seen 'Leaf by Niggle' – I was going to advert to it myself, as pan apologia, pan confession – I need say no more. Except that that story was the only thing I have ever done which cost me absolutely no pains at all. Usually I compose only with great difficulty and endless rewriting. I woke up one morning (more than 2 years ago) with that odd thing virtually complete in my head. It took only a few hours to get down, and then copy out. I am not aware of ever 'thinking' of the story or composing it in the ordinary sense. All the same I do not feel so detached as not to be cheered, indeed rather bowled over, by your son's comment. The only notice of, or observation on, the 'Leaf' that I have had at all, outside my own circle.

Well! 'Niggle' is so unlike any other short story that I have ever written, or begun, that I wonder if it would consort with them. Two others, of that tone and style, remain mere budding leaves like so many of silly Niggle's. Would it be of any use, if I put together in a bundle what I can find, and let you say whether with re-writing of this, omission of that, or addition of the other, diey have any chance of making a volume? There are one or two shon verse narratives (some have already appeared in print in the Oxford Magazine) which might pass, tactfully sandwiched in. Were you considering 'Farmer Giles' as a possibility? It is rather a long shon. The corrected and properly typed copy is 'out', on its usual travels, at the moment; but I've a tolerable home-made copy which I am sending for 'David Severn's' perusal. (The sequel is plotted but unwritten, and likely to remain so. The heart has gone out of the Little Kingdom, and the woods and plains are aerodromes and bomb-practice targets). But another comic fairy story of a similar genre, 'The King of the Green Dozen', is half-written, and could be finished without much pain, if 'Farmer Giles' is approved.

As for larger work. Of course, my only real desire is to publish 'The Silmarillion':⁹ which your reader, you may possibly remember, allowed to have a certain beauty, but of a 'Celtic' kind irritating to Anglo-Saxons. Still there is the great 'Hobbit' sequel – I use 'great', I fear, only in quantitative sense. It is much too 'great' for the present situation, in that sense. But it cannot be docked or abbreviated. I cannot do better than I have done in this, unless (as is possible enough) I am no judge. But it is not finished. I made an effort last year to finish it and failed. Three weeks with nothing else to do – and a little rest and sleep first – would probably be sufficient. But I don't see any hope of getting them; and it simply is not the kind of stuff for odd moments. Like Niggle I want a 'public pension', and am equally unlikely to get one! You shall, of course, have it for consideration the moment it is done, if it ever is. I did say, I believe, that I would let you have a pan of it, to judge of. But it is so closely knit, and under a process of growth in all its pans, that I find I have to have all the chapters by me – I am always, you see, hoping to get at it. And anyway only one copy (home-typed or written by various filial hands and my own), that is legible by others, exists, and I've feared to let go of it; and I've shirked the expense of professional typing in these hard days, at any rate until the end, and the whole is corrected. But would you now really wish to see some of it? It is divided into Five Pans, of 10-12 chapters each (!). Four are completed, and the last begun. I could send it to you. Pan by Pan, with all its present imperfections on it – riders, alternatives, variable proper names – until you cry 'halt! This is enough! It must go the way of "The Silmarillion" into the Limbo of the great unpublishables!'

I must stop, or you will be feeling the time and paper could be better spent on writing not talking about it. I have 'special exams' until Easter, and some trouble with the University of Wales. Also all the trouble caused by the death of my colleague, H. C. K. Wyld, to find whose successor will chiefly devolve on me this vacation. I am in trouble with Blackwell who has set up my translation of Pearl, and needs corrections and an introduction. I am in trouble with the widow of Professor E. V. Gordon of Manchester, whose posthumous work on Pearl I undertook, as a duty to a dead friend and pupil, to put in order; and have failed to do my duty. But I suppose I may get a few weeks in the year to myself. Though I'm also in serious trouble with the Clarendon Press; and with my lost friend Mlle. Simonne d'Ardenne, who has suddenly reappeared, having miraculously survived the German occupation, and the Rundstedt offensive (which rolled over her) waving the MSS. of a large work we began together and promised to the Early English Text Soc. Which has not forgotten it – nor my own book on The Ancrene Riwle, which is all typed out. If instead of B.D.S.T. you could invent a scheme for doubling the day (and relieve me of house-boy's duties), I'd drown you in stuff, like Tom, Dick, and Harry. But I do remain very deeply grateful for your kindness and concern.

Yours sincerely,
J. R. R. Tolkien.