The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull
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of his deprival’, meaning Houghton Mifflin, for failing to secure his U.S. copyright; and he stated that Ace Books was ‘perfectly willing to pay the author for his work – and we’ve stated both publicly and in a message to Tolkien that we want to make an arrangement for such payments’ (‘The Ace Tolkiens’, p. 18). A similar statement by Wollheim concerning payments to Tolkien was quoted also in other venues. On this point Tolkien wrote to Rayner Unwin on 11 September 1965: ‘I do not believe that any such letter [offering royalties] was ever written to me. I certainly never received one. Had I done so, I should have at once sent the letter to you as … negotiators with Houghton Mifflin’ (Tolkien–George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins).
Tolkien sent material for a revised Lord of the Rings to Houghton Mifflin from July to September 1965. This was incorporated in an authorized and newly copyrighted paperback edition by Ballantine Books of New York (*Publishers) and first published in October 1965. By then Ballantine had already rushed The Hobbit into print without revisions (which Tolkien had not yet completed), to have a Ballantine–Tolkien presence in bookshops as quickly as possible and to forestall any unauthorized paperback of The Hobbit which might appear. A revised Hobbit was published by Ballantine finally in February 1966. Every copy of the Ballantine Hobbit and Lord of the Rings carried a statement by Tolkien in reply to Ace Books: ‘This paperback edition, and no other, has been published with my consent and co-operation. Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will purchase it and no other.’ And a new Foreword in the Ballantine Lord of the Rings conveyed Tolkien’s view that it was ‘a grave discourtesy, to say no more, to issue my book without even a polite note informing me of the project’. Privately he also undertook a campaign against Ace Books in correspondence with American readers, to whom he remarked on the nature of theft. Altogether this produced a groundswell of opinion in Tolkien’s favour which seriously undercut sales of the Ace edition, even though the Ballantine Lord of the Rings was more expensive by twenty cents per volume.
Tolkien’s authorized publishers expressed their point of view as well – firmly in opposition to Ace Books – in the popular press, which brought the ‘war over Middle-earth’ (as some writers called it) further to public attention. A legal challenge was ruled out, as Rayner Unwin recalled: ‘Houghton Mifflin were not confident that they could enjoin Ace Books for breach of copyright, and from our general understanding of this complicated and untested branch of American law we [Allen & Unwin] agreed’ (George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer (1999), p. 118).
Whether or not the Ace Books Lord of the Rings was legally a ‘pirate’, the ethical aspects of the issue were strong and recognized as such by Tolkien’s fans. Some took it upon themselves to send him ‘royalties’; others, such as Nan C. Scott, wrote directly to the managers of Ace Books to complain about their treatment of Tolkien. In reply to Mrs Scott, Donald Wollheim again denied ‘piracy’ and declared Ace Books willing to offer Tolkien ‘some sort of royalty or honorarium, at our own volition’ (quoted in Rayner Unwin, George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer, p. 120). Mrs Scott addressed this point in a letter to the Saturday Review of 23 October 1965 (p. 56, in response to an article on the Ace–Tolkien controversy), noting that the tone of Wollheim’s reply to her ‘was a mixture of the suavely apologetic and the insolent, and the letter contained the suggestion that, if I were in touch with Professor Tolkien, I ask him to write to Ace Books about arranging a royalty, though the firm had no obligation to pay one!’ A letter by Wollheim himself in the same Saturday Review suggested that it was up to Tolkien to write to Ace Books if he was offended by their edition: ‘It seemed correct to us to ask one of [his] correspondents [Nan C. Scott] to tell him of our interest, for he did not write us nor did we even have his address’ (p. 56, emphasis ours).
Tolkien and his publishers on their part refused to countenance Ace Books’ claims, and in November 1965 the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) Bulletin supported Tolkien in an editorial. After quoting Donald Wollheim’s views in Lighthouse, the Bulletin editor declared:
To pretend that taking anything not nailed down is no robbery; or to protest, as Wollheim has done in another published statement (Saturday Review, Oct. 23 [1965]), that Ace is willing to pay Tolkien royalties but does not know his address; or to complain, with injured innocence, that Tolkien has failed to get in touch with Ace (as if the whole thing were somehow the author’s fault, and he really should apologize), is to adopt a distasteful attitude of wilful ignorance, bad faith and bad manners. Ace would earn more respect by admitting its fault; undertaking not to repeat it; and by making prompt and generous restitution to Professor Tolkien, whose address is: 76, Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford, England.
Within a month of this pointed editorial, Donald Wollheim wrote to Tolkien (copied to the SFWA), offering to pay an unspecified royalty direct to the author (while continuing to claim no legal obligation to do so), or to use full royalties to establish an annual science-fantasy award through the Science Fiction Writers of America. Wollheim suggested that Ace Books were only now, in December 1965, in a position to know the financial return on their edition relative to their investment. Moreover, in comparing the Ace Lord of the Rings, with its low price and long print run (150,000 copies), to the more expensive and relatively scarce (but hardly unavailable) Houghton Mifflin hardback edition, he implied that Ace Books had done Tolkien a significant favour in bringing his book to a larger audience.
The royalties offered by Ace Books, and the terms to be attached, came to the attention of the Science Fiction Writers of America and were described in their Bulletin for January 1966. ‘It is a giant step forward’, the Society reported, ‘for Ace to have written directly to Tolkien at all, after inexplicably refusing to do so for six months. But Ace’s proposed generosity toward SFWA, coupled with its niggardliness toward Tolkien, again exemplifies this company’s unfathomable mental processes and troglodytic manners. A Tolkien Award would be a good thing. A much better thing – and long overdue – would be payment of full royalties to Tolkien, to whom they belong’ (SFWA Bulletin, January 1966, p. 1).
Tolkien, on his part, had no interest in either establishing a ‘Tolkien Award’ or ‘authorizing’ the Ace edition in any way. He wrote to Rayner Unwin:
What would a skipper say to a pirate who (spying an ominous sail and ensign on the horizon) said ‘Shake hands! If you feel sore about this, I can assure you that we shall spend all the profits of our loot on a hostel for poor sailors’? …
I feel that there are only two ways of taking this offer: 1. Complete refusal to treat with Ace Books or countenance their edition. 2. Acceptance of royalties, if adequate, on the issue so far distributed, provided that Ace then retire from the competition. [29 December 1965, Tolkien–George Allen & Unwin archive, HarperCollins]
Unwin preferred the second alternative. After further negotiation, Tolkien and Ace Books came to an agreement by which eventually he received more than $9,000 in royalties on sales. This was formally announced by Ace Books in a press release issued in March 1966, which stated that the firm had ‘been on record from the start as willing to pay royalties to Dr. [sic] Tolkien, but not to his publishers who had forfeited his copyrights in the United States’. The release also included a statement signed by Tolkien but in fact proposed by Donald Wollheim, expressing his happiness to accept Ace Books’ ‘voluntary offer to pay full royalties … even though you have no legal obligation to do so’ (quoted from a reproduction in the Tolkien Journal 2, no. 2 (Astron 1966), p. 4). On 23 February 1966 Tolkien wrote to W.H. Auden that he had ‘signed an “amicable agreement”’ with Ace Books ‘to accept their voluntary offer under no legal obligation: to pay a royalty of 4 per cent. on all copies of their edition sold, and not to reprint it when it is exhausted (without my consent)’ (Letters, p. 367). In a letter of 21 March 1966, sent to the trade magazine Publishers Weekly (printed also, with date of writing, in Tolkien Journal 2, no. 2 (Astron 1966), p. 5), Rayner Unwin disagreed that Ace Books had been ‘on record from the start as willing to pay royalties’: ‘Only after energetic protests from numerous quarters had been sustained for several months did Professor Tolkien receive, in December last, for the first time, a letter from Ace Books.’ Unwin also remarked ‘that the net result of this affair has