Status Updates From As Cartas de J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien is in his late 60s, has retired, still concerned about money, trying to prepare The Silmarillion for publication. He is answering lots of letters clarifying LoTR issues - some of them incredibly detailed. He is insistent that the novel is about Death and Immortality - not about Power.

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.