174 To Lord Halsbury

[Lord Halsbury, at that time Managing Director of the National Research Development Corporation, wrote to suggest that The Silmarillion might be published by subscription, if Allen & Unwin were unwilling to under-take it on a commercial basis.]

10 November 1955

Merton College, Oxford

Dear Lord Halsbury,

It was kind of you to write, & I was pleased to have your approval and interest. I was also grateful for your suggestion of an edition by subscription.

However, the surprising welcome given to The Lord of the Rings will probably make this procedure unnecessary; and has justified the publishers' firm resolve to issue the present work first; though I wanted to present the matter in 'chronological order'. For one thing, it would have lightened and quickened the narrative of the Third Age!

I do not think that anything is referred to in The L. of the R. which does not actually exist in legends written before it was begun, or at least belonging to an earlier period — except only the 'cats of Queen Berúthiel'. But I am afraid that all the matter of the First and Second Ages is very 'high-mythical' or Elvish and heroic, and there is no 'hobbitry' at all: an ingredient that seems to have made the present mixture more generally palatable.

Since the publishers are now pressing for the Silmarillion &c. (which was long ago turned down), I do intend as soon as I can find time to try to set the material in order for publication. Though I am rather tired, and no longer young enough to pillage the night to make up for the deficit of hours in the day....

It might conceivably interest you to see some of this [The Silmarillion] before it is properly shaped or revised, bearing in mind that it is likely to be much altered in detail & presentation – and certainly in style.

Thanking you again for your encouragement.

Yours sincerely
J. R. R. Tolkien.