We have also included in the Chronology references to some, but no more than a fraction, of the personal and professional correspondence that consumed another large portion of Tolkiens time. He received many requests from colleagues for information, or comments on their ideas; requests from colleagues or former students for letters of reference when applying for academic positions; and requests from publishers for his opinion of books under consideration. He was often sent, in addition, offprints of scholarly papers and copies of books, most of which would have required at least an acknowledgement, if not reading and criticism: these amounted to hundreds of titles during his working life. And then, after the publication of The Hobbit and especially The Lord of the Rings, he received thousands of letters expressing appreciation, asking questions, or requesting his autograph. His publishers too were in frequent touch with him about various literary, financial, and legal matters. And all of this was in addition to letters he wrote to and received from his family and intimate friends.
Tolkiens correspondence with his publisher George Allen & Unwin in particular has been of immense value to us. In many of his letters he writes of personal activities, of academic pressures, and of his or his familys health, as well as about business at hand. These documents, however, became less frequent in his later years, reflecting increased face to face contact with publishers staff and use of the telephone.
Perhaps our greatest difficulty in writing the Chronology has been to decide where to place events which cannot be firmly dated, such as the emergence of the Inklings. Many of Tolkiens works, moreover, can be placed only within a range of years, and only roughly in order of writing. In doing so, we have relied on internal as well as external evidence on handwriting, paper, and typefaces, and on the state of development of the work in question. Where Christopher Tolkien as a result of his own extensive research into the history of his fathers writings has been able to group works in a sequential order, we have placed the grouping at the start of the relevant time span, rather than insert the writings in question arbitrarily into the Chronology. We have also made use of dates of composition inscribed by Tolkien on his writings and art, keeping in mind that some of these were added after the fact, sometimes many years later, and that memory can err; but statements by the creator of a work can hold significant weight. In a few instances there is conflicting evidence for dates, most notably for the origin and writing of The Hobbit, and in such cases we have made multiple entries in the Chronology, with cross-references, and have discussed the matter at greater length in the second part of the Companion and Guide.
That part, which we have called the Readers Guide, comprises in the course of two volumes a Whats What, a Wheres Where, and a Whos Who of Tolkien, arranged in alphabetical order and in a single sequence. It includes, as appropriate, articles or brief entries on:
¶ Tolkiens academic writings and his works of poetry and prose fiction, with summaries, concise backgrounds or histories, brief surveys of reviews and criticism (in so far as these exist), and miscellaneous commentary. Separate articles are provided for published works; unpublished works are noted as appropriate in topical articles, or in articles on other, related works. We have written separate articles for those of Tolkiens poems that are published in whole or in large part (i.e. more than a few lines), and are not integral with a larger literary work, e.g. the poems of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but have omitted separate entry for clerihews and for all but one of the songs (The Root of the Boot, under The Stone Troll) contributed by Tolkien to Songs for the Philologists. Also omitted are entries for letters sent by Tolkien to newspapers or journals.
¶ Key ideas in Tolkiens writings, such as eucatastrophe and sub-creation, and general topics such as his religion, his views towards women, his invented languages and writing systems, his reading, and disputes over the American copyright of The Lord of the Rings.
¶ Places that Tolkien lived, worked, or visited, the colleges and universities with which he was associated, pubs and bookshops he frequented, and so forth. It should be assumed by the reader that the places named in this book are in England unless otherwise stated, that English counties are referred to generally according to the names and boundaries that existed in Tolkiens lifetime (before the reorganization of local governments in the later twentieth century), and that while coverage is full, it is not exhaustive: we have not attempted to list every place in which Tolkien set foot. Nor have we attempted to account for every claim by towns and regions (in Britain and elsewhere) to Tolkiens presence, or as an inspiration for The Lord of the Rings, put forth with the rise in his popularity: some of these are exaggerated, others dubious at best. In all cases we have preferred to rely on documentary evidence such as letters, guest books, and diaries, rather than on assumptions and reported tradition. It should be noted also that while some of the places described in this book are open to the public, others are not. Readers therefore who wish to follow in Tolkiens footsteps should take care not to trespass on private property, including college grounds when not open to visitors.
¶ Members of Tolkiens family; friends and colleagues, especially in Birmingham and at Leeds and Oxford; fellow members of the Inklings and other groups or societies to which he belonged; publishers and editors; notable teachers and students; and major correspondents. Here too, our coverage is selective. Tolkien had many friends and acquaintances, some of whom figured mainly, or wholly, in his private life, and do not appear in published letters or biographies. Our aim has been to give an individual entry to anyone whom we know to have been particularly significant in Tolkiens life or to the production of his works, or for whom a biographical note gives us the opportunity to describe, more fully than in the Chronology, an important or particularly interesting aspect of Tolkien or his writings. Other persons with whom Tolkien was concerned are mentioned in passing, in various contexts in the Companion and Guide: references to these may be found in the comprehensive index at the end of each volume.
In the Readers Guide also, appended to the second volume, are genealogical charts (family trees) of the Tolkien and Suffield families; a bibliographical list of Tolkiens published writings; a list of his published paintings, drawings, doodles, and maps; a list of his poems, published and unpublished, by title and first line; and a list of his works with the languages into which they have been translated. In addition, we have provided (in the Readers Guide only, also in the second volume) a bibliography of the various resources and archives we have used in the writing of the Companion and Guide. A comprehensive index to all three volumes appears both in the Chronology and the second volume of the Readers Guide.
In the Readers Guide also, appended to the second volume, are genealogical charts (family trees) of the Tolkien and Suffield families; a bibliographical list of Tolkiens published writings; a list of his published paintings, drawings, doodles, and maps; a list of his poems, published and unpublished, by title and first line; and a list of his works with the languages into which they have been translated. In addition, we have provided (in the Readers Guide only, also in the second volume) a bibliography of the various resources and archives we have used in the writing of the Companion and Guide. A comprehensive index to all three volumes appears both in the Chronology and the second volume of the Readers Guide.
A few general notes are in order. J.R.R. Tolkien is sometimes referred to in this book as Ronald, to distinguish him from other Tolkiens or when reference by his surname seemed inappropriate in construction, and also generally for the young Tolkien, before he went up to Oxford in 1911.
In the Readers Guide all entries for persons whose surname begins Mc or Mac are alphabetized as if the name begins with Mac; thus the article for R.B. McCallum appears before that for Gervase Mathew. Although articles in the Readers Guide are generally alphabetized in the usual fashion, we have made an exception for those concerned with the Tolkien family in general, its members in particular, and the Tolkien Estate which is a family enterprise: these are presented in this order, intellectual rather than mechanical.
Titles of works are given as found, except that we have regularized the capitalization of hyphenated titles where variation occurs in practice, e.g. On Fairy-Stories, The Sea-Bell. Titles of discrete works given them by Tolkien, including poems, essays, and the individual tales of The Book of Lost Tales, are italicized following Christopher Tolkiens example in The History of Middle-earth, while titles of chapters or other subsections of text, and titles assigned to Tolkiens works by others (such as The Ambidexters Sentence), for the most part are expressed in quotation marks. Excepted are a few titles assigned by Christopher Tolkien which he himself chose to italicize, such as Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin in Unfinished Tales, rather than its authors choice, Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin (there is a distinct entry for this title, in quotation marks, as that of the twenty-third chapter of The Silmarillion), and Gnomish Lexicon rather than the unwieldy I·Lam na·Ngoldathon. But it is to be understood that The Silmarillion, so expressed, refers to Tolkiens mythology in general, and The Silmarillion, so italicized, generally to the book edited by Christopher Tolkien and first published in 1977, except in a few instances (understood in context) to the book that Tolkien wished to complete. All other titles are given in italics or in roman within quotation marks, as appropriate, following common conventions of style, except that we have preferred, on purely aesthetic grounds, not to distinguish titles of books within titles of books by reversion to roman or by quotation marks.
In the Readers Guide works whose titles begin Of or Of the are entered under the next significant word, e.g. Of Beren and Luthien is alphabetized as if Beren and Luthien, and Of the Beginning of Days is alphabetized under Beginning, omitting both Of and the definite article.
For the most part, each discrete work by Tolkien, or collection of works, is given a separate article in the Readers Guide. But because of the close relationship between Völsungarkviða and Gudrúnarkviða, we have found it convenient to treat them together with, and under the title of, the volume in which they are published, The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún; and because Tolkiens early work The Story of Kullervo is closely related to the Kalevala, we have chosen to deal with the former within the article for the latter (while providing a separate entry for the 2015 volume entitled The Story of Kullervo).
Direct quotations follow their source in spelling and punctuation, but we have silently corrected the occasional misspelled word or other minor error. For all quotations, page references are given whenever possible.
Because of the multiplicity of editions, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are cited only by chapter and by book and chapter, respectively. For these we have quoted from current corrected texts; for most other books by Tolkien, we have used and cited first editions unless otherwise stated. The same is true for Humphrey Carpenters biography of Tolkien (1977) and his book on the Inklings (1978). On Fairy-Stories and Leaf by Niggle, however, have been quoted most often from the edition of Tree and Leaf first published by Unwin Hyman, London, in 1988, or from the expanded edition of 2008. Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics and other works have been quoted most conveniently (as indicated) from The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (1983). Contributions by Tolkien to books and periodicals, or discrete works by Tolkien otherwise contained in a larger work (for instance, as the Ainulindalë is contained within The Silmarillion), are cited in their separate entries in the Readers Guide with inclusive page numbers according to (as a convenient point of reference) the first printing of the first edition.
The evolution of the stories of Tolkiens Silmarillion mythology is traced in entries for each chapter of the Quenta Silmarillion in the published (1977) Silmarillion. Each entry begins with a synopsis or summary of the published chapter, then traces the evolution of this part of the larger Silmarillion from its earliest appearance.
We have assumed that our reader has some knowledge of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so that we may refer (say) to Bilbo or Frodo without further explanation. The Silmarillion, as the central work among Tolkiens writings on Middle-earth, should be as well known, but is not; nonetheless, it has not been feasible to gloss in the Companion and Guide, from entry to entry, every mention of every character or place in the mythology, these being legion. For assistance in this respect, we advise the reader to consult Robert Fosters invaluable Complete Guide to Middle-earth. It also should be noted that in writing his stories Tolkien sometimes altered the names of characters, places, etc. from text to text, or applied multiple names within a story, e.g. Melko > Melkor > Morgoth, and in our accounts of Tolkiens fiction we refer to names as he used them in the particular text under discussion.
The titles of several books about Tolkien frequently referred to in the Companion and Guide are abbreviated for convenience:
The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (2011) as Art of The Hobbit.