… he claimed to be genuinely surprised when, in March 1956, he received a letter from one Sam Gamgee, who had heard that his name was in The Lord of the Rings but had not read the book. Tolkien replied on March 18:
“Dear Mr. Gamgee,
It was very kind of you to write. You can imagine my astonishment when I saw your signature! I can only say, for your comfort, I hope, that the ‘Sam Gamgee’ of my story is a most heroic character, now widely beloved by many readers, even though his origins are rustic. So that perhaps you will not be displeased at the coincidence of the name of this imaginary character of supposedly many centuries ago being the same as yours.”
He proceeded to send Mr Gamgee a signed copy of all three volumes of the book. However, the incident sparked a nagging worry in Tolkien’s mind, as he recorded in his journal:
“For some time I lived in fear of receiving a letter signed ’S. Gollum’. That would have been more difficult to deal with.“― J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography
My favorite story is that one time Tolkien was with some writer friends and he was like “oh I’ve got a new story to show you guys” and one of them was like “as long as it’s not more fucking elves”
The [World] War does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If it had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-Dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied. Saruman, failing to get possession of the Ring, would in the confusion and treacheries of the time have found in Mordor the missing links in his own researches into Ring-lore, and before long he would have made a Great Ring of his own with which to challenge the self-styled Ruler of Middle-earth. In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves.
J. R. R. Tolkien, of The Lord of the Rings (via one-small-garden)
I was curious about something, because with the light of the Amazon announcements, I realized that as a fandom, we treat Christopher, Tolkien’s 2nd youngest child, like he’s a second JRR Tolkien–and don’t get me wrong, I love his work with the Histories, but I realized a major error in our fandom as well.
For all our talk of “but what about women in Tolkien’s works” I realized that there are no search results for his only daughter and youngest of his children. Not on tumblr at least.She’s not devoid of interaction, either, as she has written articles, given talks, and supported general fanworks (such as the Tolkien Ensemble).
She co-published the Tolkien Family Album, with her older brother, John (now deceased).
Why does it bother me so much that she has no search results, despite also the severe irony of “We only care about his surviving son, and not at all his only daughter, who her parents had long hoped for.”? Because all of his children are extremely crucial to his work, and not just his sons.
Frodo is named after her stuffed bear (Bingo Bolger-Baggins), which is highly delightful to me. He eventually altered the name, obviously, to Frodo.
She attends the Oxonmoots frequently.
She has a BA degree in English and worked as a social worker. (Hence why she isn’t so “famous” as her older brother.)
She is a member of the Tolkien Society (last I checked, honorary VP).
As Tolkien’s only daughter, Priscilla has noted her father’s “complete belief in higher education for girls; never in my early life or since did I feel that any difference was made between me and my brothers, so far as our educational needs and opportunities were concerned.” [x]
She typed out some of the early chapters of Lord of the Rings for her father (around the age of 14).
She is one of the founding members of the Tolkien Trust, along with her three brothers.
My point isn’t to devalue Christopher at all, but rather to highlight that while the brothers are important to Tolkien’s works, so was his daughter and for some reason, at least among the American fandom, I almost always see Christopher the only mentioned surviving Tolkien when Priscilla is still alive and active. I get why we don’t have search results for John Francis Reuel Tolkien (his name is so similar to JRR’s, obviously), but you do have results for Michael Tolkien (one tagged post, it seems, but still far more than Priscilla has; she doesn’t even have general Tolkien posts pop up for her as her brothers do).
I’d also like to point out that while Christopher is no longer a board officer of the Tolkien Estate, his younger sister is. Just because she didn’t write the Histories doesn’t mean that she doesn’t care about her father’s work.
willowfoot 