TCG Letter #1397 / Carpenter Letter #80a

Tolkien writes to G.E. Selby, a family friend agreeing to act as a referee for his application to a post.^{See Chronology, p. 295[1]}

In a newly published extract,^{Letters, 2023[2]} of this previously unpublished letter, Tolkien sends his congratulations on Selby's marriage and on the birth of his daughter. He says that he had to wait for his own, describing having a daughter as “gracious and empriding”, noting that Priscilla is currently typing copies of a “vast romance”^{The Lord of the Rings[3]} which he hopes GA&U will publish if they ever find a paper supply.

Priscilla in the Tolkien Family Album, p. 72 would note that she was typing on two fingers. She was around 14 and was very excited at the outset of the story and soon became terrified of the Black Riders.

Extracts from the letter appeared in Sotheby's Nineteenth Century and Modern First Editions, Presentation Copies, Autograph Letters and Literary Manuscripts 28-29 July 1977. A summary of the letter was provided by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond in The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology.


This letter was previously detailed at Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to G.E. Selby • 19 September 1944 (#120). This was among the earliest letters we detailed, before we had possession of the expanded letters.