A Letter Referencing C.S. Lewis, Dragons, and Tolkien's Poem "The Hoard"
Typed Letter, Signed, on Dragon Poems
Notes: A wonderful letter by the author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy touching on poems about dragons, Beowulf, and fellow Inkling C. S. Lewis.
This letter to Prof. Henry Bosley Woolf thanks him for sending a copy of a paper he had written on Beowulf, a subject near to Tolkien's heart. Tolkien also answers a question that seems to have been about a remark he made concerning dragons. He then refers Woolf to a passage in Pilgrim's Regress by C. S. Lewis and slyly recommends one of his own poems, "Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden", without disclosing his authorship.
The title of Tolkien's poem comes from a line in Beowulf and the verse is best-known today under the title, "The Hoard." It was first published in 1923; this letter refers to the 1936 revision. Under the title "The Hoard", Tolkien republished it in The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. In that book, Tolkien connected the poem with the Lord of the Rings (LOTR) universe, placing it in the Hobbits’ Red Book and attributing it to "the lore of Rivendell, Elvish and Númenórean, concerning the heroic days at the end of the First Age”.
One page, typed, about 120 words, with Tolkien's street address, one hand-correction, and his signature, J. R. R. Tolkien, in ink.
Edition + Condition: Folded for mailing, else fine.
Publication: Oxford: 1951.
Item No: #307407
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