John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
A Hobbit in Everything But Size

"Tollers" - and His Friends

Fans of Clive Staples "Jack" Lewis are always shocked! shocked! when they learn his good friend, and Oxford colleague John Ronald Reuel Tolkien - "Tollers" to his friends - absolutely hated Jack's Narnia stories. Ronald never said why he hated them. But once he bumped into Roger Lancelyn Green, a mutual friend and one of Jack's former students. All Ronald said was, "I hear you've been reading Jack's children's story. It really won't do, you know!"

Ronald never changed his mind, and he might have even been taking a shot at Narnia in his forward to the Lord of the Rings. He claimed he deliberately choose the word "dwarves" as the plural of "dwarf" to "remove them a little, perhaps, from the sillier tales of these latter days". In Narnia, Jack had used "dwarfs" and "elfs".

Now you might read that Ronald's use of "dwarves" was a simple mistake from analogy - leafs/leaves, wife/wives, loaf/loves - and he just didn't want to own up that an Oxford English professor could make such a trivial error. Actually both plurals are found in books throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. True, "dwarfs" is listed as the correct plural in the 19th century dictionaries and is still used more often than "dwarves". "Elves", on the other had, was listed as the only proper plural for "elf", although in practice, "elfs" is used almost as often.

The Narnia tales were never read to the informal literary club, the Inklings, that met every Thursday evening in Jack's college rooms. That's not much of a surprise. Although Jack may have been tinkering with the tale and ideas behind The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe for a long time, the actual writing of what became the published narrative probably began only in late 1948 or early 1949. The Inklngs were petering out by then, and after August 1949, they stopped meeting entirely.

Some think the Inklings themselves have been overly mythologized - including some of the Inklings! Dr. Robert Emlyn "Humphrey" Havard, Jack's fellow Inkling, friend, and physician, said they were simply a group of Jack's friends who lived close enough to get together regularly. "There does seem to be some tendency," he said, "to take us all much more seriously than we took ourselves."

However, Humphrey's comment clearly over-simplifies what the Inklings were. The primary purpose of the group was to read original literary works (and receive criticism). So they weren't just a group of buddies meeting for a guy's night out. Not that they didn't have convivial times. After the Second World War, they sometimes met for ham suppers where Jack would share the food parcels he received from an American admirer, Dr. Warfield Firor, a distinguished surgeon at Johns Hopkins University (Britain continued to have rationing until 1954). If no one brought a manuscript, they would discuss religious, philosophical, or literary topics.

The Inklings had a definite and recognized membership although it did change from time to time. It was by no means restricted to older academics. John Wain, 25 years old in 1950 and later Professor of Poetry at Oxford, joined the group, as did Christopher, Ronald's youngest son.

And the membership was exclusive. Once Ronald brought a guest who thought he had therefore been granted a standing invitation. When he showed up the next week he found the atmosphere decidedly frosty, and Warnie Lewis, Jack's older brother and Inkling member, wrote in his diary, "Jack and I much concerned by the gate crashing of ----. Tollers, the ass, brought him here last Thursday, and he has apparently now elected himself an Inkling." We should mention, though, that Warnie and Ronald got along very well.

The Hobbit, on the other hand, was read at the Thursday night meetings as was the "New Hobbit", a sequel which later became the Lord of the Rings. Warnie thought the latter was an amazing book, but that opinion wasn't shared by all the Inklings. Hugo Dyson, a hyper-active member of the group would groan when Ronald pulled out the manuscript.

"Oh, f---!", he would snort, "Not another elf!" [This is, after all, a family-valued website.] It was probably Hugo's derision and hostility that eventually forced Ronald to stop bringing the book to the meetings - and may even have ultimately contributed to the group's demise.

People who saw the blockbuster motion pictures of the Lord of the Rings but hadn't read the books often came away saying "What the hey was going on?" And in fact, the complex film adaptation with added sub-plots, modified characters, and altered story-lines, actually drove a lot of viewers to the books so they could find what they hey was going on. And any movie that sends people to reading books has to be a good movie.

Generally, fans of the books did like the movies. In fact, part of the fun was to see what the screenwriters changed. Alas, such positive sentiment - to quote Sportin' Life - ain't necessarily so regarding the screen adaptation of The Hobbit, a movie which probably should have been retitled, Three Movies From Overpadded Bloated Scripts with Invented Randomized Scenes with Elves, Wizards, Dwarves, Men, Orcs, Wolves, and Rabbits with a Little Bit of About a Hobbit. You can - literally - read the book quicker than you can watch the movies and with far more enjoyment. A sad fate for a great book, particularly since Martin Freeman played the part of Bilbo to perfection.

Ronald was born Janurary 3, 1892 in Bloemfontein, South Africa. His father, Arthur, died when Ronald was only four and his mother, Mabel, settled in Birmingham where they had relatives. But Mabel died in 1904, and Ronald and his younger brother Hillary were raised by a local Catholic priest, Francis Xavier Morgan.

(Note: There is a question that is raised by many of Ronald's fans. Just how do you pronounce the name Tolkien. Those who do not know may learn THE TRUTH if they just click here.)

Ronald did well in school and won a scholarship to Oxford. But when Father Francis learned Ronald was seen actually talking to a girl named Edith Bratt and who was three years older than Ronald and also actually a member of the Church of England, he forbade Ronald to speak, write, or communicate in any way with Edith until he was 21. Ronald agreed, but after he graduated, he and Edith were married.

Ronald's major was English but a word of explanation is in order. Students from the United States can get confused about the "degrees" at Oxford. It's impressive when we learn Ronald received two degrees in his four year career. One was in Greek and Latin - a formidable subject called "Honor Moderations" or "Mods" - and another in English where he studied Anglo-Saxon and related languages (including Old Icelandic). His friend, Jack Lewis, actually got three - quote - "degrees" - unquote. One (like Ronald's) was "Mods", another in Philosophy and Ancient History (called "Greats"). The third was for English which he completed - "read" in the British patois - in only one year. At Oxford you only take examinations at the end of the term, and Jack got the highest grade possible - a "First" - in each of his "degrees"

However, these "degrees" were not degrees, but two year courses of studies. The "Mods" and "Greats" can be thought of as (possibly) analogous to what in America is an "associate" degree or if you wish you can think of them as groups of courses that divvy up a usually four-year degree. A misconception is that the colleges award the degrees. That was the prerogative of the University which granted your Bachelors of Arts - the coveted BA - after four years.

On the other hand, the ranking from the examinations are counted separately. You took the examinations - over a period of eight days - after you completed the course sequence. So after two years you'd take your Mods exams and then two years later you'd "sit" (again British argot) the exams for your second course of study. Jack's English - quote - "degree" - unquote - was extra. So Jack did indeed have "Three Firsts" from Oxford - but only one earned degree: a BA.

Now "Mods" at Oxford boasted - and still does - of being the hardest set of examinations in the world. So it helped if you can get a hefty dose of your - quote - "higher education" - unquote - before you ever got there. And in Ronald's day college preparatory work was stuffed with Greek and Latin - requirements that George Orwell was glad to see fade away after the Second World War. So both Ronald and Jack had a good basic knowledge of the complex grammar of these languages before they "read Mods" at Oxford.

It also helped that Ronald had a natural talent for languages. He not only studied Greek and Latin as a kid - and he enjoyed it - but became well versed in Anglo-Saxon before he ever left Birmingham. In fact, when he got to Oxford he found he had read almost everything in the English syllabus. He wondered what he was to do to keep busy.

However, like many students, Ronald soon found there was a lot he didn't know particularly when he began to study with Joseph Wright, an Oxford professor who had started life as a common laborer. Joseph was one of the odd humans who just had a desire to learn. He became fascinated with languages and so attended night classes - which at the time were often given free of tuition. His learned enough French, German, math, and science that he was able to enroll at the University of Heidelberg. There he studied philology and after graduating joined the faculty at Oxford in 1888.

It was likely it was Ronald's study of Anglo-Saxon that kindled his interest in bawdy literature, something that may shock (shock!) Ronald's fans who know of his strong religious beliefs. But neither Ronald nor Jack saw anything contradictory in being religious and enjoying a bit of ribaldry. In fact Jack said he thought it a most wholesome genre.

Of course, part of what made the humor acceptable was it was couched in double entendres. Once Jack was amused when a student wrote how the medieval concept of "courtly love" was a "vast medieval erection". Ronald himself was a master of bawdy in a number of languages.

Ronald likely got his introduction to bawdy rhymes in his teens when - aside from the ubiquitous limericks - he began learning Anglo-Saxon. Among the standard literature was the Exeter Book which contains a number of - ah - "poems". One of the most famous is:

Wrætlic hongað     bi weres þeo
frean under sceate     foran is þyrel
bið stiþ ond heard     stede hafað godne
þonne se esne     his agen hrægl
ofer cneo hefeð     wile þæt cuþe hol
mid his hangellan     heafde gretan
þæt he efenlang ær     oft gefylde.

This would be pronounced something like:

Wratlich hongath     bee weres theoh
frean under sheateh     foran is theurel
bith stith ond haird     stdeh hafath godneh
thonneh seh esneh     his ahyen hragel
ofer cneoh hefeth     wileh that cutheh hol
mid his hangellan     heafeh gretan
that he efenlang air     oft gefueldeh.

And means:

An ornament hangs     alongside the man's thigh
under the lord's sheet     forward is a hole.
It is stiff and hard.     The position is good
Then the youth     his own garment
Hefts over the knee     when that familiar hole
with his "hanger"     the head greets
that he just as long     often filled!

And the answer ....?

A key, of course!

NyeahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!

Or this:

Ic on wincle gefrægn     weaxan nathwæt
þindan ond þunian     þecene hebban
on þæt banlease     bryd grapode
hygewlonc hondum     hrægle þeahte
þrindende þing     þeodnes dohtor.

pronounced sort of like:

Ish on windeh gefragen     weaksan natkhwat,
thindan ond bunyan,     thekeneh hebban;
on that banleaseh     breud grapodeh,
heugewlonk hondum,     hragleh theahteh
thrindendeh thing     theodnes dokhtor.

Which means

I discovered something     growing in a corner,
swelling and sticking up,     lifts up a roof.
At that boneless thing     a bride grasps
with the hand     covered with her robe.
the swelling thing     the thane's daughter.

The answer, of course, is "bread dough"

What else?

Ronald graduated with a BA in 1915 and then went into the army. There was, after all, a war on. As an Oxford man, Ronald received a commission, and so Second Leftenant Tolkien of the Lancaster Fusiliers (an infantry regiment) made it to France just in time for the Battle of the Somme. Before the battle was over two of his best friends had been killed, one as he was simply walking down a road.

The trench warfare of World War I was notoriously unhealthy, and Ronald came down with "trench fever". Unlike a number of early twentieth century afflictions, "trench fever" can be fairly well identified as a bacterial infection transmitted by lice. Ronald was evacuated from the front "to hospital" (again as the British say, leaving out the articles). His illness lingered, and he never returned to combat.

Ronald had graduated from Oxford with First Class Honors in English (although only a Second in "Mods"). So after the war he applied for various university teaching positions and after a stint at working at the Oxford English Dictionary, he wound up at the University of Leeds. The department was small with only two faculty members. After a couple of years he was made professor - a more exclusive position than in American universities. Then in 1925 when the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford became vacant, Ronald applied for the job.

It was a long shot. The English faculty had their eyes set on three other candidates: Allen Mawer of the University of Liverpool, Raymond Wilson of University College London, and the "reader" of English at Oxford and Ronald's old tutor, Kenneth Sisam. On the other hand, Ronald had the strong support of George Gordon, the Merton Professor of English Literature at Oxford and who at Leeds had been the Professor of English Literature - and so - Ronald's old boss.

But Allen, when asked, declined to apply and later moved to University College London. Raymond was actually offered the job but turned it down. So it boiled down to Kenneth and Ronald. When the faculty voted, they were split 50/50. So the Vice Chancellor, Joseph Wells, had to cast the deciding vote. For whatever the reason he voted for Ronald.

The English Department at Oxford was split into two groups, the "Langs" and the "Lits". The Langs were those who wanted to study Anglo-Saxon and the Lits were more interested in reading later English literature.

But there was Trouble in Oxford City. Why, the Lits asked querulously, should English students be studying a lousy Germanic language, which is what Anglo-Saxon is. English students should read English, for crying out loud, and that included modern English and recent literature.

The Langs, though, said what the heck do you Lits even do? Read books by (ptui) "commercial" authors like Dickens, Thackeray, and the Brontë Sisters? Shoot, you could read the whole "Lang" syllabus while lolling in your baths!

When he got back to Oxford, Ronald - being of the "Lang" faction - advocated changes which at least to the uninitiated seems to shove the Lits aside. However, he was actually offering a pretty significant compromise. First the Langs and Lits could pursue separate courses of study. Langs would stick with Anglo-Saxon and related languages (including Old Icelandic). They could stop their reading at Chaucer.

On the other hand, as a concession to the Langs, there would be less emphasis on the learning of grammatical rules of Anglo-Saxon and more on reading of the actual texts (in fact, with guidance you can read Beowulf with minimal up-front knowledge of the grammar). The Langs on the other hand could still read more recent works - Shakespeare and Milton - but there would be no required reading beyond 1830. The date was not arbitrary. All Victorian literature was scotched from the Oxford curriculum.

Ronald had a daunting task. At first the Langs were dead set against his proposals. Even Jack voted against them. But eventually Ronald was persuasive and his proposals were adopted. Even today you can hear Oxford English grads on Have I Got News For You recite in fluent Anglo-Saxon.

Had you joined Oxford (or any other university) in the early 20th century you would be surprised at the differences compared to today. This was still a time when lengthy multiple-degreed educations requiring decades of study weren't needed to make it in the world. Naturally this lower demand for formal education affected the makeup of the university communities.

First, you could become a faculty member without a Ph. D. Many of the tutors, readers, and yes, the professors had no earned degree higher than a bachelor's. True, Ronald was granted an MA - a Master's degree - in 1919, but this was an honorary degree sometimes bestowed to graduates who had been at the school for a total of five years. Remember that after the war, Ronald had returned to Oxford and worked on the Oxford English dictionary. The MA was also granted for esteemed faculty members (Jack Lewis was awarded an MA), and of course, to individuals the school wanted to honor, such as the writer, Charles Williams. Charles was a friend of Jack's and a fellow Inkling who was a principal editor at Oxford University Press. But Charles, although he had attended college, had never completed his undergraduate degree.

But what's really weird is you could - and may we all die the deaths of a million dogs if we lie - be a successful, tenured professor holding an endowed chair at a world-renown institution and do almost no research. Perishing by not publishing lay far in the future.

Now Ronald and the other faculty did not have "tenure" as in the United States. Oxford professors, readers, and tutors were (and are) appointed for five years stints. On the other hand, the holders of the positions were almost always re-elected and indeed re-election was expected unless they had committed some extraordinary impropriety. True, there were (and are) also temporary appointments which to the uninitiated have similar sounding titles to the "lifetime" jobs. Even today applicants for a job at Oxford are sometimes cautioned to check to see what kind of job they're actually applying for.

There was certainly little of the pressure to publish at the manic level of modern universities. From 1922 until his retirement in 1959, Ronald contributed original research on the average of once every two years. Some publications were in journals and others were books of medieval works, such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He did, though, publish a fair amount of his original poetry in various English magazines, often associated with his universities. He also would write review articles and the occasional book review.

But things changed after World War II. The war had ushered in the era of Big Science. And Big Science required Big Money and Big Money required Big Grants, 50 % of which goes to the university - at least in the US - as "overhead". The more you published the more grants you could get, and so more money siphoned off to the University administration. So in a positive feedback loop, the spiraling publish or perish doctrine became de rigeur in universities where today teaching is more and more seen as an irritant.

Nevertheless, even in the antebellum days, research had been more important for science professors than for their linguistic or humanistic colleagues. Chemists like Robert Robinson, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Oxford, and Christopher Ingold, professor at University College London, both published at nearly the modern rate. But without the massive computerized instrumentation or even simple equipment like rotary evaporators, heating mantles, and thermocouples, the cost of science was relatively cheap. The funding, in turn, was mostly from the professors going - as it has been described - "hat in hand" to industrial companies or organizations or even to rich people who liked the idea of being scientific patrons. Government funding was relatively rare.

Today, grants to English professors rarely bring in millions of dollars in overhead. But once the science professors started pumping up their papers, this began to influence other departments. So even departments whose grants didn't bring in a lot of dough fell into the publish-or-perish cycle.

But in Ronald's time all that brouhaha lay in the future. College "fellows" - as opposed to professors - could get away with publishing even less. Hugo Dyson - the denigrator of the Lord of the Rings - taught at the University of Reading and later at Oxford. Yet he published virtually nothing. True, before World War II a professor could count lectures - even as part of a course - as academic contributions. But the main point is that universities were still seen largely as teaching institutions.

That doesn't mean, though, that you had to be a good teacher, and exactly how effective Ronald was is a topic up for debate. W. H. Auden, the famous poet not many people remember, attended Ronald's lectures on Beowulf. He wrote enthusiastically of the experience - but he did so years later and in a letter he sent to Ronald.

Other students, though, found Ronald's lectures difficult to follow. He would speak rapidly and not always distinctly, often running his words together. In the mid-1960's an interviewer found Ronald was so difficult to understand that he couldn't even tell if during Ronald's pauses, he was expected to respond to a question that he hadn't understood. Even his fellow Inklings found they preferred Ronald's son, Christopher, to read The Lord of the Rings.

Research or not, good teaching or not, it's easy when reading the books about Ronald to come away with the impression that there was no better job than being a fellow or professor at Oxford. Shoot, Ronald and his friends had the leisure one day a week to meet in the morning at a pub (yes, in the morning at a pub) and stay through lunch. Full professors had time to write massive books unrelated to academic work and read them to your friends every Thursday evening. Except for lectures - maybe once or twice a week - you taught students one at a time. They came either to college rooms (sort of a live-in office) or even your house rather than you go to them in a classroom.

But best of all, with the examinations given at the end of the year by the University, Oxford teachers did not have to put up with the scit - to borrow an unattested and reconstructed Old English word - that American secondary or university teachers do when dealing with griping, whining crybabies wondering why their incorrect answers lost points. Truly teaching at Oxford was the Life of Reilley.

Alas, we are talking about the real world, and there was still a lot of scit at Oxford. You had to get along with your colleagues - not any easier there than anywhere else - and there were the interminable faculty meetings that went on for hours and sometimes broke up in disarray.

And although it sounds appealing having one-on-one tutorials rather than hassling with a class, the Oxford system was actually more time consuming than the American option. Although in the 1920's and 30's a tutor might have no more than 8 individual students, that means he had to devote 8 hours a week repeating the same topic. In a classroom setting, the teacher could have handled the work for all his students in an hour.

Although Ronald was a professor, he still tutored students, which meant he usually listened to them read their essays. The tutors didn't actually "grade" the essay, but his feedback and instructions were expected to prepare the student for the end-of-term examinations. So for professors and tutors it wasn't long before the never-ending and wearying repetition of the subject sometimes produced their cantankerous personalities so legendary of the Oxford faculty.

Of course, the students could also be a pain in the ers to quote Chaucer. They were, after all, still college kids and could come up with varied and inventive excuses for missing lectures, skipping tutorials, and blowing off assignments, all done with the savoire faire of their American cousins. Student activities also interfered with serious studies. Once Ronald and Jack were taking a walk along Oxford's grassy lanes and almost tripped over a couple taking their ease. As Jack later put it, "The boy's [ers] was pumping like a fiddler's elbow."

At Leeds Ronald made £800 a year and when he joined the Oxford faculty this bumped up to £1000 - well above the average income for the UK (tutors like Jack Lewis made a paltry £500 per annum). But even Ronald's professorial salary could still be stretched when raising four kids on a single paycheck (Edith, like virtually all wives of the time, did not work). Faculty members could, though, pick up extra cash by grading end-of-year-examinations for secondary schools. During one of these sessions - usually by necessity late at night - one student had left a whole page blank. On the spur of the moment Ronald wrote down, "In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit." He had no idea what a hobbit was but decided he'd have to find out.

By 1936 The Hobbit had yet to be completed. Then somehow the word got around to Susan Dagnall, an Oxford graduate who worked for the publisher Allen and Unwin, that Professor Tolkien had written a most unusual children's book. She visited Ronald and looked at the manuscript. Would he finish it, she asked, so they would consider it for publication? Ronald did so and Stanley Unwin, the chairman of the firm, thought children were the best judges of children's books and handed the manuscript to his ten-year-old son, Rayner. Rayner liked the book and wrote a brief and favorable report. The first issue was printed in 1937.

The book turned out to be - if not the bestseller it later became - then at least profitable. Although the more prudish are shocked! shocked! to read a children's book where the characters say "What the 'ell", remember this was in England, for crying out loud. And in Jack's Lewis's Narnia books, the kids actually drink wine and even hard liquor (carried in a hip-flask by Mrs. Beaver).

[Note: Although it is indeed a shock to some genteel Americans that kids in the Narnia books drink wine and liquor, this is less of a jolt for readers in the UK or other parts of the world. In England if you are 16 you can drink with a meal in a licensed restaurant. Younger children can also drink alcohol if 1) they are in a private setting like a home or an apartment, 2) they are with an adult, and 3) they are older than - get this - four years old.]

Stanley asked if Ronald had more material for publication as a sequel for The Hobbit. Ronald showed him some of the other stories he had written that had the provisional title The Simarillion. There really wasn't anything about Hobbits there, and Stanley said that although there was much wonderful material to be "mined", the book wasn't really suitable as a follow-up for the Hobbit. But Ronald was at least relieved that Stanley had taken the writings seriously.

The original goal had been to have a new Hobbit book in time for the next Christmas season. Eventually Stanley got the sequel but it was about fifteen years later. By then Rayner had graduated from Oxford and gone into the family business. Interestingly, Ronald didn't like Stanley very much although he did like Rayner.

The story of the acceptance of the Lord of the Rings is a convoluted tale which, to be honest, Ronald doesn't come off looking too good. He had become irritated that Sir Stanley continued to show little interest in The Simarillion - which was certainly not ready for publication (and it's questionable if it ever really was). Then Ronald met Milton Waldman, a representative from another publisher, Collins, who expressed interest in both the Lord of the Rings as well as The Silmarillion. We also have to be honest and say Collins may have had the most interest in gaining the rights for the profitable Hobbit.

Milton, though, wanted to be sure that there was no prior agreement - either explicit or moral - between Ronald and Stanley. Ronald felt that at the least he had to explain the situation. So Ronald mentioned his discussions with Collins to Sir Stanley (who had been knighted shortly after World War II) and wrote asking for a straightforward "yes" or "no" that Allen and Unwin would publish both the Lord of the Rings and The Simarillion.

Sir Stanley didn't like ultimata from authors any more than any other publisher and responded exactly as Ronald hoped. Since Ronald wanted an immediate yes or no to publication of both, the answer had to be no. But it might, he added, have been yes at a later time and on receipt of the completed manuscript.

But when negotiations with Collins broke down - they were, in fact, scared off by the sheer size of the books - Ronald rebroached the subject with Rayner about publishing just the Lord of the Rings.

Rayner was familiar enough with the manuscript that he didn't need to look at it right away and quickly got estimates for the production costs. But it was Sir Stanley who was still in charge and as the head of the firm, it was ultimately up to him to accept or reject the book.

What had started out as another light-hearted children's story had, as Ronald said, grown in the telling. It was certainly no longer a children's book, and Rayner said he was not sure who was expected to read it. The books was also as large as War and Peace running more than 1000 printed pages. Rayner wrote his dad - who was out of the country on business - that they would likely lose money on the book, but that it was a work of genius. Sir Stanley cabled back that if the book was a work of genius, Rayner could go ahead and lose the money.

To mitigate their loss, Ronald and Sir Stanley agreed to a profit sharing arrangement. Ronald would receive no royalties until the printing costs were paid for. But then the money would be split 50/50 between the author and the publisher. Such an arrangement reduced loss for the publisher but if the book sold unexpectedly well, the author would make more money than a standard percentage royalty.

They also would break up the book into three separate volumes. That way they could spread out the loss over time and use the money from more profitable books to cover the expenses. Even today the Lord of the Rings is still called a "trilogy", although now you can get single volume editions.

Rayner needn't have worried. From the first the book sold well. Ronald's first royalty check was £3500 - more than his Oxford salary (of course, inflation had pushed Ronald's original salary up). The royalties also pushed Ronald into a higher tax bracket and to help defray the extra tax, Ronald worked out a deal to sell the manuscripts of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings to Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Royalties got even better when Sir Stanley arranged a deal with Boston publisher, Houghton-Mifflin, to issue an American edition. Now in his sixties, Ronald regretted he hadn't taken early retirement.

But he still was not rolling in wealth. The book sold well, yes, but the increasing percentage of tax he had to pay diminished the returns. But then a strange thing happened.

The publisher of Ace Paperbacks, Donald A. Wollheim, contacted Ronald about a paperback edition. Donald, according to one story, received a rather sharp snub, with Ronald saying he would never consent to issuing his works in a "degenerate" format. Stung, Donald started looking into copyright laws.

American copyright laws had been established in the early 20th century because foreign publishers were pirating American books and not having to pay royalties. Also to help protect the American printers, the copyright law restricted the number of pages that could be sent to America from a foreign publisher. But demand for Lord of the Rings increased and Houghton-Mifflin inadvertently asked for too many pages. Hence the Lord of the Rings had fallen into the public domain in the United States. So Ace Books went ahead with their paperback.

The paperbacks were indeed popular and naturally Ronald and Sir Stanley were irritated. Evidently Donald was correct about the copyright issues, and all Sir Stanley could do was ask Ronald to agree to an "authorized" paperback to be published by Ballantine Books. Ronald agreed and made some revisions to the text so the authorized paperback was covered by a new copyright. To the forward he also added a paragraph - which was also printed on the back covers - that the Ballantine edition was the only paperback that had been printed with his consent and cooperation. Readers of the book should purchase this edition, he said, and no other.

Ace experienced considerable backlash. Sales dropped off and they agreed to discontinue any further printings of their editions. Donald also sent royalties to Ronald. And for those interested in making your own edition, don't do it. Changes in copyright laws have restored the American rights back to Ronald's kids even for the first edition.

But with the printing of the "authorized" paperback, Ronald's name was everywhere: in drugstores, supermarkets, and anywhere else that paperbacks were sold (believe it or not, actual bookstores in the 1960's were almost as hard to find as they are now). Whole racks appeared that held nothing but the Hobbit and the three volumes of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King.

Ronald was a bit perplexed (not to say irritated) about the paperback cover of The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Where the heck did the artist get emus? And what was that what-ever-it-was off to the right of the cover on the Fellowship? The problem was Barbara Remington, the artist and unlike her usual practice, had not been able to read copies of the book before undertaking the work. But there's no doubt that Barbara's eye-catching art - which also made great posters then becoming in vogue with college kids - contributed to the paperback sales.

Like many people who have greatness thrust upon them, Ronald found that celebrity wasn't always welcome - particularly when he got a phone call in the middle of the night from a fan calling from the United States who was unaware of the time difference between the two countries. But in any case and despite his spiraling tax rate, he soon became a wealthy man and retired to Bournemouth on the south coast of England. After Edith died in late 1971, Oxford invited him to live at the University at the school's expense. Ronald himself died two years later in 1973.

Today people talk about the "philosophy" of the Lord of the Rings. But given the disparity of the people who agree with the philosophy - ranging from teenage nerds to blustering foamy mouthed shock jocks - we wonder just what the heck the philosophy is. Ronald himself said the book was fundamentally a Catholic book - but as is so typical of Ronald's comments - he never elaborated further. So readers keep debating what Ronald really meant.

But first of all, we need to remember. Ronald did not start the Lord of the Rings with the intention of writing a Catholic book. Instead, it was a follow up to the Hobbit - a children's story. Ronald did revise the story as it grew in the telling, but what is particularly absent is any overt or even tangential hint of any religion for the Hobbits. They have no churches, no worship services, or when you get down to it, no type of ceremonies at all. What philosophy is this?

When people try to explain a person's philosophy - be it Ronald's or Jack Lewis's or Socrates's or Richard Wagner's - there is an assumption of a coherent set of beliefs behind the writings so that with enough discussion, the beliefs will come to light. However, in the real world few writers, philosophers, cartoonists, preachers, university professors, butchers, bakers, or candlestick makers have completely consistent philosophies.

Ronald, literally in the same sentence, could say he preferred both anarchy and absolute monarchy. And he offers some of both in his books. The inhabitants in the North - the Shire and Bree - have complete freedom and no government. But then a small group - Frodo, Pippin, Merry, and Sam - cheerfully help establish an absolute monarchy ruling over, not only their country of the Shire, but the whole continent as well. Then of course, the absolute monarch - Aragorn (or Strider) - then adopts a hands-off policy toward his subjects, letting them do what they want. And to enforce this hands off policy, he issues absolute decrees, one of which restricts where his subjects could travel!

So there's a lot in the - quote - "philosophy" - unquote - of the Lord of the Rings for just about everyone.

But what if you're not an anarchist or an absolute monarchist, but just believe that there are lower classes that must be held in ignorance and kept from positions of power? No problem. Look again at the The Lord of the Rings. The Gaffer warned Sam about butting in the business of "his betters" because Sam wanted to learn to read and write and hear stories about the Elves. And the Hobbits themselves only lived in peace as long as they had unknown protectors, the "Rangers", the men of Númenor (again led by Aragorn) guarding the borders unbeknownst to the Hobbits. Or as Aragon said at the Council of Elrond, if "simple folk" are to be kept free from fear and care, then they must be kept simple and their protectors must be secret to keep them so.

What if you are against significant mixing of cultures - although you don't object to international trade? Well, once more we can look at the Lord of the Rings where we have the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain and the Men of Erebor and Laketown. They get along fine despite their being different cultures and races where there is no immigration and - despite the rare human/elf union - no intermarriage.

And if peaceful and contented living may not be your bag? Again look at the Lord of the Rings. There you solve problems with "bad" people by waging war. Some of the bad guys in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings - Sauron and his Orcs - are so incorrigibly evil that the only possible solution is their complete annihilation. After all it never seems to have occurred to Elrond or Gandalf that putting Sauron on trial at the International Court of Justice might be a real option.

And finally, if you don't like the way technology is taking over our lives and yearn for the "good old days", again it's all there in the Lord of the Rings. The Hobbits are perfectly content and manage quite well, thank you, with nothing more complex than a forge bellows or a water mill. When Lotho Sackville-Baggins moved into Bag-End and started doing "Sharkey's" bidding, he started bringing in high-tech ways to improve production and so made life increasingly miserable. And of course, the furnaces and industrial scale forges of Saruman and the massive complexes of Sauron were the forerunners of the the modern military industrial complex.

All right. Just how do we reconcile such disparate and contradictory - but popular - philosophies?

First, we have to remind everyone that Ronald was an Oxford English professor who was born in the Victorian Era and reached late adolescence in the Edwardian Times. Although recognizing the flaws of the English class system, Ronald accepted it as being generally beneficial. "Touching your hat to the Squire may be damn bad for the Squire", he wrote, "but it's damn good for you." Such a philosophy has always been a popular one for those who don't have to actually slave away in the fields of the squire.

Ronald really was suspicious of technology - or at least he saw that if there was good from new inventions there was probably more bad. We also have to remember he lived though a time when technology completely changed the lifestyles of the world and was at least as - probably more - disruptive to the society as the computer and Internet revolutions of the late 20th century. When his family moved to Birmingham, you got to where you wanted to go by walking or horse-drawn carriage. But he lived to see men walk on the Moon.

Honesty compels us to admit that Ronald tended to focus on the negative aspects of technology. He also tended to see the machine itself as the main problem.

But it is the aeroplane of war that is the real villain ... My sentiments are more or less those that Frodo would have had if he discovered some Hobbits learning to ride Nazgûl-birds, "for the liberation of the Shire".

Not that he didn't realize that people played their parts in the calamities. As he wrote about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

The news today about "atomic bombs" is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world!

On the other hand, Ronald recognized that even some good could come from even the worst technology. He continued:

But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in.

Ronald - like many of us - seemed most comfortable with the technology he remembered from childhood. He had fond memories of the Sarehole gristmill in Birmingham, but was less enthusiastic of the arrival of the automobile to the countryside. He even railed against the new-fangled labor saving devices which he said only create more and worse labor. We wonder, though, if Edith - who was keeping a house with four kids - agreed with him on that point.

We don't know much about Ronald's specific education in science and math (or "maths" as the English call it). But we read that Ronald did invent a Hobbit calendar which some people have noted has an accuracy rivaling the Gregorian calendar. So he must have had a good knowledge of complex calculations.

Weeeeellllll, maybe not. Ronald did "invent" a Hobbit Calendar but that did not require any real knowledge of astronomy or mathematics. The Hobbit Calendar is really the Anglo-Saxon calendar of which Ronald was familiar from his readings.

From one of his letters, Ronald spoke of scientific theories as another form of mythology. However, a testable quantitative theory with true predictive power - such as Newton's laws of gravitation - is a concept missing from the Lord of the Ring - and virtually all fantasy fiction for that matter. Of course, Ronald grew up in a time where a college preparatory curriculum meant you studied Latin, Greek, and history - particularly English history which consisted of knowing the dates of various coronations, wars, and battles. Math and science - like today - could be avoided if you wished. In fact, his friend Jack Lewis flunked his algebra entrance exam when first applying to Oxford.

But if Ronald wasn't great in math(s), why was he asked to serve as a cryptographer in World War II? At the least he must have had a good basic math background.

Actually, what the government may have been after was Ronald's knowledge of Germanic languages. This, of course, could be helpful when fighting a war against German speakers. But although Ronald did speak modern German, so did a lot of others in British military intelligence, and evidently his fluenchy in Anglo-Saxon, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Middle English was not deemed crucial for the war effort. He was later informed his services would not be required.

But let's not be misled. Although in favor of absolute - or rather "unconstitutional" - monarchy, Ronald was completely opposed to the dictatorships that sprang up with élan in the 20th century. He had absolutely no use for the Communist revolutions and the anti-religious stance of the Marxist doctrine. So in the Spanish Civil War, he looked with favor on the pro-Catholic Franco regime - which we should point out remained neutral in World War II and allowed Gibraltar to remain in the hands of the English.

Franco's strong support of the Catholic church produced some friction between Ronald and Jack. As Ronald wrote to Christopher:

We did not leave Magdalen until midnight, and I walked up to Beaumont Street with him. C.S.L.'s reactions were odd. Nothing is a greater tribute to Red propaganda than the fact that he (who knows they are in all other subjects liars and traducers) believes all that is said against Franco, and nothing that is said for him. Even Churchill's open speech in Parliament left him unshaken. But hatred of our church is after all the real only final foundation of the C of E - so deep laid that it remains even when all the superstructure seems removed (C.S.L. for instance reveres the Blessed Sacrament, and admires nuns!). Yet if a Lutheran is put in jail he is up in arms; but if Catholic priests are slaughtered - he disbelieves it (and I daresay really thinks they asked for it).

Ronald absolutely despised Hitler and felt the Nazi philosophy was a complete perversion of Germanic and Nordic ideology and virtues. When the publisher of the German edition of The Hobbit wrote to inquire if Ronald was of "Arisch" origin. Ronald responded stiffly saying "I am not of Aryan extraction; that is Indo-Iranian. As far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects."

Ronald then went on to add "But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." He told his own publisher, Stanley Unwin, that as far as we was concerned he could let the German edition go hang.

His opposition to countries wanting to conquer and occupy others is pretty clear in the Lord of the Rings And Ronald could be pretty tough on America - and Britain - as well. As he wrote when World War II was drawing to a close:

I know nothing about British or American imperialism in the Far East that does not fill me with regret and disgust, I am afraid I am not even supported by a glimmer of patriotism in this remaining war.

The desire for a nice peaceful "natural" world without humans mucking about with it is understandable - until you remember the "natural world" is not only beautiful sunsets, warm sunny days, and basking outside your front door. The "natural world" also consists of disease, plagues, crop failures and famines, floods, earthquakes, and other disaters.

Of course, none of this happens to the Hobbits. They never get sick and all live into robust old age. Food is always plentiful and harvests are abundant. The only natural calamity in Hobbits' recent history was a particularly cold winter - the "Fell Winter" - where white wolves invaded the Shire from the north and the Brandywine River was frozen over.

The modern world also raised its head when it came time to writing the screenplays for the movies. There are few women of leadership in the books, the one exception being Galadriel (as originally spelled). She actually seems to be the one in charge, and her husband, Celeborn, supposedly the big cheese of the Elves, doesn't come off as very bright. He also doesn't do much. Celeborn led the army to Dol Goldur (and after the war was over, we notice), but it was Galadriel who threw down it's walls.

Still, with the exception of Éowyn, who rode in battle, the ladies stay home (even Galadriel). So when the movies came out, Arwen - a minor and indeed almost non-existent character in the books - took the place of Glorfindel and was given an even greater role.

For us today, including more ladies does make for a better movie. Ronald was a Victorian/Edwardian middle class man living in a male dominated society. Few women had careers outside of the home and his books reflect his environment.

And yes, you can find that Ronald wrote that women had limitations compared to men. As he wrote to his son, Michael:

[Women] can in fact often achieve very remarkable insight and understanding, even of things otherwise outside their natural range: for it is their gift to be receptive, stimulated, fertilized (in many other matters than the physical) by the male. Every teacher knows that. How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp his ideas, see his point - and how (with rare exceptions) they can go no further ...

Lest Ronald's fans go into spittle flinging diatribes, this was a fairly liberated view for men of his generation - and later. Nor was such a view limited to men. Even in the 1920's some rather progressive women opposed universal suffrage, and as late as the 1950's we have television shows where women argue that only men should run for high political office.

So what is the philosophy of the Lord of the Rings? Well, if we put everything together, it's that the best possible world is one with the simplest of hand tools, living in a world with no disease, abundant food, inhabitants reaching an advanced and healthy old age to be ruled by an absolute monarch who will let his subjects live in independent communities free from his control with no need for any formal local governments of their own.

Yes, the Lord of the Rings is fiction.

References and Further Reading

J. R. R. Tolkien: The Authorized Biography, Humphrey, Carpenter, Houghton Mifflin, 1977

J.R.R. Tolkien: Architect of Middle Earth, Daniel Grotta-Kurska, Warner, 1977

"The Unauthorized Lord of the Rings", Kirkus, https://www.kirkusreviews.com/features/unauthorized-lord-rings/#continue_reading_post

The History of The University of Oxford: Volume VIII: The Twentieth Century, Brian Harrison (Editor), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994.

The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien, (Humphrey Carpenter, Editor), Houghton Miflin, Boston, 1981.

Letters of C.S. Lewis, Clive Staples Lewis, Warren Lewis (Editor) Harcourt, 1988.

The Inklings : C S Lewis, J R R Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends, Humphrey Carpenter, George Allen & Unwin / Houghton-Mifflin (1978)

J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, Houghton Mifflin, 1995.

The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography, Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, Oak Knoll Books, 1993.

C.S. Lewis A Biography, A. N. Wilson, Norton, 1990

C.S. Lewis, Poetry, and the Great War, 1914-1918, John Bremer, Lexington Books, 2012.

The Hobbit (Abridged), J. R. R. Tolkien, Read by Nichol Williamson, 4 Records, Argo, 1974.

Religion of the Northmen Rudolph Keyser, Barlay Pennock (translator), Norton, 1854.

"Jobs at Oxford: A Guide for the Perplexed", Brian Leiter, Leiter Reports, http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2007/02/jobs_at_oxford_.html

The Triumphant Unicorn, Cole Matson, "http://colematson.com/2012/01/05/oxford-vs-us-an-undergrad-degree-comparison-chart-glossary/

"UK Economy in the 1920s", Economics: Helping to Simplify Economics, Tejvan Pettinger, http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/5948/economics/uk-economy-in-the-1920s/

"A Short History of the English Faculty", http://english.nsms.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/History%20of%20Eng%20Fac.pdf

"Climate Scientist Takes on Tolkien's Middle Earth", Scientific American, Nathanael Massey, December 18, 2013

"XXXXXXXX", XXXXX, XXX XXXX. Sadly the specific reference to Jack and Ronald meeting the young couple during a walk is one that escapes the present writer.

Ngram Viewer, https://books.google.com/ngrams. A really slick online application for finding the frequency of words in online books scanned in by Google.