Status Updates From The Letters of J.R.R. Tolki...

We are up to late 1957, three years after the publication of The Fellowship, and 12 months after the final vol 3 - Return of the King. Tolkien is already responding to letters indicating he is someone's research thesis topic (can only assume a graduate thesis), numerous letters of clarification of the meaning of various themes, and two film proposals, plus the BBC radio dramatisation. Also big royalty payment.

It is 1956 and Tolkien is beginning what I assume will be a long line of letters from readers. One of whom is Sam Gamgee! He writes to his son, Christopher "I have had a letter from a real Sam Gamgee, from Tooting! He could not have chosen a more Hobbit-sounding place, could he? though un-Shirelike, I fear, in reality.

It is 1955 and finally all three volumes of LoTR have been published. Allen & Unwin have published it but not without a number of peevish and testy letters of frustration from Tolkien, due to production hiccups. Along the way, there has been quite a bit of exposition about the themes of the novel, and about Tolkien's personality. I must admit he is level of self-awareness kind of surprises me.