The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull
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books and clamour for more will draw their own conclusion.’
Ace Books’ public relations efforts following their settlement with Tolkien also included an advertisement for their edition of The Lord of the Rings on the final page of John Myers Myers’ Silverlock, published by Ace in 1966. Within its text was the paragraph: ‘By arrangement with Professor Tolkien, these Ace volumes are the only American editions that are paying full royalties directly to the author. They are authentic, complete, unrevised and unabridged.’ This was true, in a manner of speaking: the Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine editions paid royalties only indirectly to Tolkien, through the chain of American publishers and George Allen & Unwin; the Ace volumes were ‘authentic’ and ‘complete’ in and of themselves, as far as those words had any meaning in context; and the books were indeed unrevised (compared to the Ballantine edition) and unabridged (there were, and are, no abridged editions in English). But it was also misleading and self-serving, and apparently little-noticed at the time.
The Ace Books edition of The Lord of the Rings was never reprinted. In 1966–7 the number of copies returned was greater than the number sold, as the Ballantine Books edition became the one clearly preferred by readers.
In later years Donald Wollheim continued to argue that Ace Books had been in the right to issue its edition of The Lord of the Rings, and that Tolkien’s authorized publishers had failed to protect his American copyrights. Some latter-day Tolkien enthusiasts also excuse the Ace Books edition on the grounds that had the issue not been forced, Houghton Mifflin might never have allowed The Lord of the Rings to be published as inexpensive mass-market paperbacks. ‘The Great Copyright Controversy’ by Richard E. Blackwelder, published in Beyond Bree for September 1995, follows this line. Although Blackwelder’s article is useful for its long (though by no means exhaustive) list of references to writings about the Ace Books controversy, he accepts Donald Wollheim’s arguments uncritically. Wayne G. Hammond, F.R. Williamson, and Rayner Unwin offered rebuttals to Blackwelder in Beyond Bree for December 1995. See further, Rayner Unwin, George Allen & Unwin: A Remembrancer, ch. 5; and Descriptive Bibliography, notes for A5c.
The question of the validity of Tolkien’s American copyrights continued to be challenged for more than a quarter-century after the Ace Books affair, and for the same reasons. At last in 1992 the issue was settled in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, in the case of Eisen, Durwood & Co. v. Christopher R. Tolkien et al. Eisen, Durwood, a book packager doing business as Ariel Books, sought a legal declaration that the original text of The Lord of the Rings – specifically, that of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers (The Return of the King was not considered due to ‘differing circumstances’) – was in the public domain in the United States due to the failure of Houghton Mifflin to include a copyright notice in a substantial number of the copies they had published. On the contrary, in a decision delivered on 6 April 1992 Judge Vincent L. Broderick found the Tolkien copyright of the first edition of The Lord of the Rings to be valid, and granted defendants’ motion for summary judgement in their favour. He concluded that even though Houghton Mifflin had not included a notice of copyright in many copies of The Lord of the Rings, the law did not provide for the forfeiture of copyright because of the failure to include such a notice. Indeed, he found, the Copyright Act of 1909 as later amended did not require a copyright notice to be printed in books with subsisting ad interim protection, which was true of the Houghton Mifflin Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers. In presenting their case Eisen, Durwood had abandoned any claim that excessive importation of copies printed abroad had resulted in loss of copyright through violation of the ‘manufacturing clause’; but even if the plaintiff had not done so, the 1909 Act again nowhere stated that forfeiture of copyright would automatically result. Judge Broderick’s decision was upheld on appeal in 1993.
This case immediately laid to rest any doubts about Tolkien’s U.S. copyright in the first edition of The Lord of the Rings or the legal correctness of his and his publishers’ position (apart from its clear moral authority) during the Ace Books controversy. Six years later, the United States Congress passed the Copyright Extension Act in response to a new international agreement on copyright approved by the group formerly known as GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), to which the United States was a signatory. This brought U.S. law regarding the length of copyright into line with the laws of its major trading partners and provided, moreover, that if a work was validly in copyright in any of the signatory countries, it was also to be considered in copyright in all of the other countries party to the agreement. Under this authority the *Tolkien Estate acted to re-register Tolkien copyrights in the United States, reinforcing and extending their validity.
See further, Joseph Ripp, ‘Middle America Meets Middle-Earth: American Discussion and Readership of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, 1965–1969’, Book History (2005), which discusses the Ace Books affair at length.
Acocks Green (Warwickshire). On 17 October 1966 Tolkien wrote to a group of primary school children in *Acocks Green, east of *Birmingham: ‘I lived till I was 8 at *Sarehole and used to walk to A[cocks] G[reen] to see my uncle. It was all “country” then …’ (quoted in Sotheby’s, English Literature, History, Children’s Books and Illustrations, London, 16 December 2004, p. 274). Acocks Green is some two miles north-east of Sarehole (now Hall Green). During Tolkien’s years at Sarehole (1896–1900) Acocks Green was still one of three hamlets along the Warwick Road, though already developed into a middle-class suburb of Birmingham since the opening of a local railway station in 1852. Much of its rural landscape was obliterated with the construction of municipal housing beginning in the mid-1920s.
Acta Senatus. Report, in Latin, of a Latin debate at *King Edward’s School, Birmingham, published in the King Edward’s School Chronicle n.s. 26, no. 186 (March 1911), pp. 26–7 The work is not signed, but Tolkien’s authorship is revealed in his papers.
Adaptations. Tolkien took a deep interest in the ‘fortunes’ of his works, ‘as a parent would of a child’ (letter to Carole Batten-Phelps, autumn 1971, Letters, p. 413). He felt strongly about the uses to which his works were put and was selective in what he allowed, in so far as he had the authority to do so and circumstances permitted. As discussed in our essay on the *Ace Books controversy, Tolkien held copyright in his works, but this did not go unchallenged, limiting his ability to deny permission for certain purposes; nor could he ignore the possibility of income from such projects, not only for himself and his family, but also for his publishers George Allen & Unwin (*Publishers), to whom he felt an obligation. Allen & Unwin on their part sought to sub-license Tolkien’s intellectual properties as it seemed best, a common function of publishers to enhance income for their authors as well as for themselves, though in Tolkien’s day it had not yet become as bound up in ‘media’ and merchandising (notably excepting the efforts of the *Walt Disney Studios) as it is today.
In this article we discuss, by no means exhaustively, adaptations of Tolkien’s works for the stage, radio, film, and television. For ‘adaptation’ in the form of ‘fan fiction’, see *Fandom and popularity. For unabridged or abridged readings of Tolkien’s works for broadcast or recording (granted that an abridgement is a special kind of adaptation, and that there may be a fine line between a reading and a dramatization), and for adaptations in print (such as comic-book versions), see notes under individual titles.
See further, Tolkien Adaptations, bd. 10 (2013) of Hither Shore: Interdisciplinary Journal on Modern Fantasy Literature, and Paul Simpson and Brian J. Robb, Middle-earth Envisioned (2013).
STAGE ADAPTATIONS
Interest in dramatic adaptation of Tolkien’s fiction was expressed at least as early as 1953, when Miss L.M.D. Patrick asked permission to perform a stage version of *The Hobbit at St Margaret’s School, Edinburgh. On that occasion Tolkien and George Allen & Unwin approved a limited run; but another play based on The Hobbit, sent to Tolkien by early 1959, seemed to him ‘a mistaken attempt to turn certain episodes … into a sub-Disney farce for rather silly children. … At the same time it is entirely derivative’ (letter to Charles Lewis, George