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TCG Letter #370 / Carpenter Letter #142

From

J.R.R. Tolkien

Father Robert Murray

Date

2 December 1953

Type

Typed Letter Signed

Transcript

Partial

Robert Murray had offered Tolkien some thought on The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien replied that The Lord of the Rings is a Catholic work, describing it as an unconscious act at first but consciously so in the revision.

Tolkien mentions his fears of the publication, as he has “exposed” his heart to “be shot at”.

The 2023 revised edition of Letters restores a paragraph where Tolkien talks about how non-Catholics will receive the book, and describes how he might be able to get proofs of The Lord of the Rings for Murray to read.

A portion of the introductory paragraph (removed by Carpenter after the first sentence) can be partially read on screen in the documentary Tolkien A Film Portrait.

Tags

The Lord of the Rings

Religion

Middle-earth

Philology

References

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981), pp. 171-3

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded ed. (HarperCollins, UK), pp. 257-59

The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide - Chronology (2017), p. 439

J.R.R. Tolkien A Descriptive Bibliography, Di1, p. 350; Dii26, p. 357; Dii34, p. 358

Tolkien and the Great War, p. 13 (single sentence quoted)

Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography, p. 3

J.R.R. Tolkien: Scholar and Storyteller, p. 284

Tolkien & the Silmarillion, p. 56-7

The Tablet, 15 September, 1973, pp. 779-80

Pity, Power, and Tolkien's Ring: To Rule the Fate of Many, p. 10, p. 15, p. 55, p. 287n42

The Ring of Words, p. 54

Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Sources of Inspiration, p. 30, see note 48

Isabelle Pantin, L’ombre de Troie dans l’œuvre de Tolkien, see pp. 149-50, note 1, (Many thanks to Tom Hillman for providing us with references from this article)

Silke Anzinger, "Von Troja nach Gondor.Tolkiens „The Lord of the Rings“ als Epos in vergilischer Tradition," in Vestigia Vergiliana: Vergil-Rezeption in der Neuzeit edited by Thorsten Burkard , Markus Schauer and Claudia Wiener. (2010) pp. 363-401. p. 372 note 32

Marco Cristini "The Fall of Two Cities: Troy and Gondolin." Thersites 15 (2022), p. 10

War and the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien, p. 73

Cartas de J.R.R. Tolkien, pp. 268-70

The Collected Poems of J. R. R. Tolkien, p. xiii

Portions of the original letter are viewable in Tolkien A Film Portrait (1996) at approximately 1:22:06 and 1:22:19

Ivano Sassanelli, "Religious and Catholic: Primary and Secondary World in Tolkien's Letter no. 142", in Giuseppe Pezzini & Eden O'Brien (ed.), Tolkien and the Relation between Sub-creation and Reality, Inklings Studies Supplement 3 (2023), pp. 107-26

Michael Livingston, "Troy and the Rings:Tolkien and the Medieval Myth of England," Mythlore 32.1 (2013), p. 80 citation from p. 172 ['Letters', 1981].

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TCG Letter #370 / Carpenter Letter #142

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