236 To Rayner Unwin

[Tolkien received a copy of the Puffin Books edition of The Hobbit in September 1961, but did not look at it until December.]

30 December 1961

76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

Dear Rayner,

.... I wish well-meaning folk who think they know could be restrained! I had occasion a day or two ago to look up a passage in The Hobbit, and the 'puffin' lying to hand, I looked it up there. So I discovered that one of this breed had been busy again. Penguin Books had, I suppose, no licence to edit my work, and should have reproduced faithfully the printed copy; and at least out of courtesy to Allen and Unwin and myself should have addressed some enquiry before they proceeded to correct the text.

Dwarves, dwarves', dwarvish have been corrected throughout (with one exception on p. 21) to the current dictionary forms dwarfs, dwarfs', dwarfish. Elvish, elvish has been changed to Elfish, elfish 7 times but left unchanged 3 times. I view this procedure with dudgeon. I deliberately used dwarves etc. for a special purpose and effect – that it has an effect can be gauged by comparing the passages with the substitutes dwarfs, especially in verse. The point is dealt with in L.R. iii, p. 415. Of course I do not expect compositors or proof-readers to know that, or to know anything about the history of the word 'dwarf'; but I should have thought it might have occurred, if not to a compositor at least to a reader, that the author would not have used consistently getting on for 300 times a particular form, nor would your readers have passed it, if it was a mere casual mistake in 'grammar'.

Dwarfs etc. is of course the only recognized modern form of the plural; but the (inconsistent) correction of elvish has not even that excuse. The older and 'historical' form elvish is still recognized, and appears even in such popular dictionaries as the 'Pocket Oxford'. I suppose I should be grateful that Cox and Wyman have not inflicted the change from elven to elfin and further to farther on me which Jarrolds attempted, but Jarrolds were at least dealing with a MS. that had a good many casual errors in it. I believe there is only one error remaining in the text from which the Puffin was printed: like for likes (6th imp. p. 85 line 1; Puffin p. 76, line 23). This crept in in the 6th imp. I think. Not that Gollum would miss the chance of a sibilant! Puffin has not emended it. I suppose Gollum was regarded as 'without the law' and immune from the dictates of dictionaries or 'house-rules'. Not so the narrator.

Apart from this the errors appear to be few. I have noted: waiting is omitted before/or (puffin p. 32/11). ahead appears as head (p. 87/5 from bottom). There is an inverted g in examining (p. 225/2 from bottom). And oubht, bood appear for ought and good on p. 228.

I am sorry to inflict such nigglings on you (I am a natural niggler, alas!) which will not seem to anyone else as important as they do to me; and nothing can be done about them now, anyway. Though Penguin Books might be informed that they have not passed unobserved. In fact I do not think that I should have signed a copy for Sir Allen Lane, if I had observed them before. I feel inclined to tell him so, and offer to emend the copy in my own fair hand, if he will return it!

This is a Fell Winter indeed, and I am expecting White Wolves to cross the river. At present dead calm reigns, as the only car to appear in my road slid backwards downhill and disappeared. There is small chance of this reaching you tomorrow Jan. 1 to wish you a Happy New Year. I hope you have plenty of food in store! It is my birthday on Jan. 3rd, and I look like spending it in the isolation of a house turned igloo; but the companionship of several bottles of what has turned out a most excellent burgundy (since I helped to select it in its infancy) will no doubt mitigate that: Clos de Tan 1949, just at its top. With that hobbit-like note I will close, wishing you and your wife and children all blessings in 1962.

Yours ever,
Ronald Tolkien.

P.S. Will you please thank Miss M. J. Hill (and yourself) for the copy of School Magazine Nov. 1961 (N. S. Wales) containing the Hobbit extract and the article 'Something Special'. I thought the latter was well written for its purpose..... But alas! faced with actual stories people are always more ready to believe in learning and arcane knowledge than in invention, especially if they are bemused by the title 'professor'. There are no songs or stories preserved about Elves or Dwarfs in ancient English, and little enough in any other Germanic language. Words, a few names, that is about all. I do not recall any Dwarf or Elf that plays an actual pan in any story save Andvari in the Norse versions of the Nibelung matter. There is no story attached to the name Eikinskjaldi, save the one that I invented for Thorin Oakenshield. As far as old English goes 'dwarf' (dweorg) is a mere gloss for nanus, or the name of convulsions and recurrent fevers; and 'elf we should suppose to be associated only with rheumatism, toothache and nightmares, if it were not for the occurrence of aelfsciene 'elven-fair' applied to Sarah and Judith!, and a few glosses such as dryades, wuduelfen. In all Old English poetry 'elves' (ylte) occurs once only, in Beowulf, associated with trolls, giants, and the Undead, as the accursed offspring of Cain. The gap between that and, say, Elrond or Galadriel is not bridged by learning. Now you will feel this letter has become a pamphlet or a new year garland! But you have a w[aste] p[aper] b[asket] I suppose, at least as capacious as mine. JRRT.