The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Volume 2: Reader’s Guide PART 1. Christina Scull
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(July 1997).
No comprehensive, widely available bibliography of articles, reviews, and other writings about Tolkien that have appeared in fanzines has yet been published. One of the foremost experts on the subject, Sumner Gary Hunnewell, has produced relevant checklists, notably his series Tolkien Fandom Review which (to date) covers the period from the beginning of Tolkien fandom through the late 1960s. Lists, by a variety of hands, of Tolkien-inspired items such as calendars, posters, recordings, games, and collectible figures are occasionally published in the fanzine Beyond Bree; some of these were collected in the List of Tolkienalia, ed. Nancy Martsch (1992).
See also *Criticism; *Fandom and popularity.
The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eärendel. Poem, the latest version of which was published with commentary in *The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (1984), pp. 269–71.
In this work a minstrel is encouraged to sing of ‘Eärendel the wandering’, ‘a tale of immortal sea-yearning / The Eldar once made ere the change of the light’. But the poet replies that ‘the music is broken, the words half-forgotten’. The song he can sing ‘is but shreds one remembers / Of golden imaginings fashioned in sleep’.
The Bidding of the Minstrel survives in several versions. On one of these Tolkien noted that he wrote the poem in his rooms in St John Street, *Oxford in winter 1914. To its earliest finished text he later hastily added the title (as it appears to *Christopher Tolkien) The Minstrel Renounces the Song; later this became Lay of Eärendel and finally The Bidding of the Minstrel, from the Lay of Eärendel. In its original form it ‘was much longer than it became’ (Christopher Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, p. 270): in early 1915 Tolkien divided its first part, The Bidding of the Minstrel, from its second, which he entitled The Mermaid’s Flute (see Chronology, entry for 17–18 March 1915 and later). He made slight revisions to The Bidding of the Minstrel in the period c. 1920–4.
The work is one of several early poems by Tolkien concerning the mariner Eärendel (variously spelled), who would figure prominently in *‘The Silmarillion’ (see *‘Of the Voyage of Eärendil and the War of Wrath’). Here Eärendel wanders earthly seas, a figure of ancient lore whose tales are bound up with those of the Elves (earlier ‘fairies’). On the back of one of the earliest workings of the poem is an outline of a great voyage by Eärendel to all points of the compass on earth, but also to ‘a golden city’ later identified as the Elvish city Kôr, before setting sail in the sky: see The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two, pp. 261–2.
Bilbo’s Last Song (at the Grey Havens). Poem, first published in English by the Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, as a poster in April 1974 (a Dutch translation appeared at the end of 1973), and by George Allen & Unwin, London, in September 1974. See further, Descriptive Bibliography A11. For later editions, see below.
In this work the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, now near the end of his life (‘Day is ended, dim my eyes’), bids farewell to his friends and to Middle-earth as he takes ship at the Grey Havens (at the end of *The Lord of the Rings) and sails ‘west of West’ to ‘fields and mountains ever blest’. The content and mood of the poem call to mind ‘Crossing the Bar’ (1889) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It was not, however, Tolkien’s own farewell to Middle-earth, as some have interpreted it, nor is it wholly a later work. Bilbo’s Last Song is a revision of a much earlier poem, Vestr um haf (Old Norse ‘west over sea’), from the 1920s or 1930s. In this there is no connection with Bilbo Baggins or Middle-earth; and it could not have become Bilbo’s Last Song until after Tolkien had conceived of the end of The Lord of the Rings, no later than November 1944 (see Letters, p. 104, letter to Christopher Tolkien, 29 November 1944: ‘But the final scene will be the passage of Bilbo and Elrond and Galadriel through the woods of the Shire on their way to the Grey Havens. Frodo will join them and pass over the Sea …’). But the poem was in its final form by October 1968, when Tolkien’s occasional assistant, *Joy Hill, discovered it while helping him arrange his books after he had moved from *Oxford to *Poole. On 3 September 1970 he presented the poem, with its copyright, to Joy Hill as a token of gratitude for years of friendship and service.
In the original Houghton Mifflin issue Bilbo’s Last Song was accompanied by a gauzy photograph of a river, for mood rather than as a depiction of the poem’s events. George Allen & Unwin, London, published the poem in September 1974, also in poster form but with an illustration by *Pauline Baynes of Sam, Merry, and Pippin watching the Last Ship sail into the West. In 1990 Bilbo’s Last Song was published in book form, accompanied by three series of illustrations by Pauline Baynes: one which tells the story of Bilbo’s last days at Rivendell, his procession to the Grey Havens, and his departure for the Undying Lands; another which depicts Bilbo remembering his past adventures; and a third which tells the story of *The Hobbit. The second of these was omitted in a new edition of Bilbo’s Last Song published in 2002.
As a poster, Bilbo’s Last Song was too slight to attract reviews, while the book version received (favourable) notice mainly for its illustrations.
Although it is not strictly part of The Lord of the Rings, the poem was smoothly incorporated into the 1981 BBC radio production of that work (*Adaptations) by Brian Sibley and Michael Bakewell. It has also been set to music (see *The Road Goes Ever On: A Song Cycle) and recorded by *Donald Swann.
Biographies. Tolkien held qualified views on biography and its uses, in particular when he was to be the subject. On 24 June 1957 he wrote in response to a request from Caroline Everett, author of an M.A. thesis on his fiction: ‘I do not feel inclined to go into biographical detail. I doubt its relevance to criticism. Certainly in any form less than a complete biography, interior and exterior, which I alone could write, and which I do not intend to write’ (Letters, p. 257) – a biography, that is, which not only recorded ‘exterior’ facts such as those found in Who’s Who, but also examined how (or whether) Tolkien’s experiences had influenced his writings. Produced by anyone other than the subject himself, such a biography in its ‘interior’ aspects could be no more than speculation (notwithstanding critics who have argued that an author is the last person to understand what he writes). Elsewhere Tolkien wrote that ‘only one’s guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author’s works’ (letter to Deborah Webster, 25 October 1958, Letters, p. 288).
Even so, Tolkien was aware that many readers of *The Lord of the Rings were interested to know more about him, and was concerned that if facts about his life were to be reported, they should be reported accurately. In 1955 he provided information about his life and work to the columnist Harvey Breit of the New York Times Book Review, but felt that the result (‘Oxford Calling’, 5 June 1955, quoted in Letters, pp. 217–18) did not make sense. ‘Please do not blame me for what Breit made of my letter!’ he wrote to his American publisher, the Houghton Mifflin Company (*Publishers). ‘I was asked a series of questions, with a request to answer briefly, brightly, and quotably’, and he had done so (30 June 1955, Letters, p. 218).
When the critic Gilbert Highet likewise asked for biographical material, Houghton Mifflin forwarded the request and apparently made it known that a text was needed also for their own publicity purposes. In response, Tolkien prepared a formal statement which was part biography and part comment on issues related to The Lord of the Rings, asking forgiveness if Houghton Mifflin should find it ‘obscure, wordy, and self-regarding and neither “bright, brief, nor quotable”’. The statement, contained within a letter, was printed in Letters, pp. 218–21, incorporating annotations and corrections by Tolkien made to a typescript copy. A portion was quoted earlier in the article *Tolkien on Tolkien in the Diplomat for October 1966, together with three paragraphs from a letter Tolkien had written in 1963 to Mrs Nancy Smith (provided to the magazine by the recipient), but with errors.
Accounts of Tolkien’s life often have been marked by errors, by misinterpretations of facts, even by outright invention. On 16 January 1961, the translator Åke Ohlmarks having included biographical information in a preface