Читать книгу The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 15

[Tolkien wrote the greater part of The Hobbit during his first seven years as Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. A text was in existence by the winter of 1932, when it was read by C. S. Lewis, though at this stage the typescript apparently lacked the final chapters, and broke off shortly before the death of the dragon Smaug. This typescript was eventually seen by Susan Dagnall, an Oxford graduate working for the London publishing house of Allen & Unwin, and she encouraged Tolkien to complete the story and offer it for publication. See nos. 163, 257, and 294 for Tolkien’s account of her involvement with the book, though two of these later letters are in error in suggesting that Susan Dagnall was still an Oxford student when she read the manuscript. See further Biography p. 180. It was on 3 October 1936 that Tolkien sent the completed typescript to Allen & Unwin. Stanley Unwin, founder and chairman of the firm, replied on 5 October that they would give their ‘immediate and careful consideration’ to the book. No further correspondence survives until the following letter. By the time that Tolkien wrote it, the book had been accepted for publication, and he was already preparing maps and illustrations.]

4 January 1937

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Miss Dagnall,

Maps &c. for ‘The Hobbit’.

I am sorry for the long delay. I was unwell for some time, and then faced by a family laid low one by one by influenza, brought back from school for the entire ruin of Christmas. I succumbed myself on New Year’s Eve. It has been difficult to do anything, and what I have done is I fear poor enough. I have redrawn two items: the chart, which has to be tipped in (in Chapter I), and the general map. I can only hope – as I have small skill, and no experience of preparing such things for reproduction – that they may possibly serve. The other maps I have decided are not wanted.

I have redrawn (as far as I am capable) one or two of the amateur illustrations of the ‘home manuscript’, conceiving that they might serve as endpapers, frontispiece or what not. I think on the whole such things, if they were better, might be an improvement. But it may be impossible at this stage, and in any case they are not very good and may be technically unsuitable. It would be kind if you would retum the rejected.

Yours sincerely

J. R. R. Tolkien.