He joined the staff of the Saturday Evening Post and Holiday Magazine , co-produced the Financial Book Digest and wrote extensively for the Silver and Gold Report (2).

Two issues of Rally, August 1966 and July-August 1967, had an essay by Jared Lobdell on Tolkien. Thimothy J. Wheeler did write to Tolkien and must have sent them these two issues as will be discussed in this article.

I'm very proud to be able to offer up for sale a lot of correspondence between J.R.R. Tolkien and Timothy J. Wheeler. This lot includes two letters by J.R.R. Tolkien to T.J. Wheeler, a letter by Tolkien's assistant and the rare article by Jared Lobdell from the August 1966 issue of Rally. In this lot is also the original sketch of J.R.R. Tolkien used to illustrate the article, a carbon copy of a letter to J.R.R. Tolkien and a 2 page typed letter to Christopher Tolkien talking about the Tolkien related Rally issues and a visit of Christopher Tolkien to Mythcon.

This article will have a close look on the items inside the lot and make some side notes .

This is a fine example of a J.R.R. Tokien autographed typed letter. It mentions the publication of the three paperback volumes by Ballantine Books: "Thank you for your interest and support. Ballantine Books is about to bring out a paper-back edition revised by myself. This should make it worth the few cents difference in price, of which I shall receive about one third."

Adding a note on the Ace Books:P.S. It must be noted that Ace Books are acting legally, whether morally or not, and purchasers of their edition have no claim in law to a return of money.

On 20 October 1965, Tolkien did at least write one other letter (3). This letter was to Clyde S. Kilby, the founder and first curator of the Marion E. Wade Collection and one of the earliest C.S. Lewis scholars; he designed and taught a popular course on the mythopoeic works of C.S. Lewis and other authors such as J.R.R. Tolkien.

From 5 to 15 October Tolkien was away from Oxford, possibly to Bournemouth, where he developped a poisoned left arm and had to return to Oxford. There a heap of letters had arrived because there was a constant stream of fan mail that had been autimatically forwarded by George Allen & Unwin. On the 25th of October Rayner Unwin proposed to deal with some of the mail rather then forward it all (3). Yet, we know Joy Hill did already take care of a lot of Tolkien's fan mail by mid 1965, which arrived in huge quantities (4). For example on 21 september 1965, she forwarded a batch of answered letters to Tolkien (5). It is a possibibility that this letter had been answered by Joy Hill (or even by Phyllis M. Jenkinson, Tolkien's assitant) and that Tolkien corrected the mistake in "Ballantyne", by changing the "y" in a "i". The signature is a very fine example of a 1965 Tolkien autograph and moves slowly towards Tolkien most famous flourishing signature; which he started to use in early 1966.

Late 1965 and begin 1966, J.R.R. Tolkien received too much of fan correspondence to be able to work on any more Middle-earth related writing.

Tolkien writes: "Thank you for your letter. I hope you will not think that I am ungrateful for your attention and good wishes if I say that I do not feel able to write anything such as you wish. I do wish you well, but I do not think that I would really do you much good to have special good wishes from me."

On 7 January 1966, three days before writing the letter to Timothy J. Wheeler, Tolkien wrote to Benjamin P. Indick something very similar: "Indeed, if I am ever to produce any more of the stories which you ask for, that can only be done by failing to answer letters" (5).

The comment at the end of this short letter about his "special good wishes" being of little use to Wheeler is a little odd, and I'm sure a lot of people can speculate on this. Maybe it is a linguistic joke or a reply to something Wheeler wrote; I suppose we will never know.

On 6 December 1965 the first known letter was sent out using the signature P.M.J., a letter to Rayner Unwin. Phyllis M. Jenkinson became Tolkien's secretary around this time and stayd in this position until July 1968, when Tolkien moved to Poole. She had spent seven years before that assisting Lord David Cecil (7).

Also in this lot is a 2 page typed letter to Christopher Tolkien, written by Timothy J. Wheeler on July 27, 1987, mentioning the essays by Jared Lobdell about J.R.R. Tolkien in Rally Magazine and the visit of Christopher Tolkien at Mythcon.

Letters from Tolkien are quite uncommon and highly coveted; typed signed examples which have a connection to rare Tolkien Ephemera have become scarce. This lot would be a very great addition to any Tolkien collection.

(1) Timothy J. Wheeler R.I.P. (National Review, obituary, 10 september 2007). (2) Timothy J. Wheeler (Three Lakes, Wisconsin obituary). (3) Christina Scull & Wayne, G. Hammond - 'The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide' (HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006), Vol. I, pp. [645]. (4) Christina Scull & Wayne, G. Hammond - 'The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide' (HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006), Vol. II, pp. [366-367]. (5) Christina Scull & Wayne, G. Hammond - 'The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide' (HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006), Vol. I, pp. [644]. (6) Humphrey Carpenter & Christopher Tolkien - 'The Letters of JRR Tolkien' (George Allen & Unwin, 1981), pp. [366], letter 283. (7) Christina Scull & Wayne, G. Hammond - 'The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide' (HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006), Vol. I, pp. [648]. (8) Jared Lobdell - 'Words That Sound Like Castles' - (in Rally Magazine, Milwauki, 1, N°3, August 1966), pp. [24-26]. (9) Jared Lobdell - 'Words That Sound Like Castles' - ( in National Review, 5 September 1967), pp. [972-974]. (10) Richard C. West - 'Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist Revised Edition' (The kent University Press, 1981), pp. [82-83].

Enjoyed this post? Click to get future articles delivered by email or get the RSS feed.

Spread the news about this J.R.R. Tolkien article:

Digg this - Post to del.icio.us - Post to Furl

Enjoyed this post? Click to get future articles delivered by email or get the RSS feed.

Spread the news about this J.R.R. Tolkien article: