Carta 74

On 22 June Unwin sent Tolkien a substantial cheque for royalties on The Hobbit and let him know that his son Rayner Unwin was reading English at Oxford as a naval cadet.

Tolkien was delighted that he would have a chance to see Rayner. At the same time he was grieved that the war had swept him up. Tolkien said his youngest son had been carried off – in the midst of typing and revising The Hobbit sequel and making a map – and was now far away and wretched in the Orange Free State. His older son, a damaged soldier, was at Trinity College trying to work and recover.

Tolkien had not written to Unwin for some time. He said he should have thanked him for his note and the two copies of The Hobbit. Although no work had been possible for a year, recently Tolkien had been able to press ahead with the sequel to within sight of conclusion. He hoped Unwin still had some mild interest in it, despite the paper shortage. Typing was difficult and expensive to have done and there was no one to fix his typewriter when it broke. Still, he would soon submit a chunk of it to Unwin.

He thanked Unwin for the cheque. It would be useful, he said, since he had large debts trying to complete a family's education when war had taken away most means.

In the expanded edition
In the continuation of the first paragraph, Tolkien regrets that he didn't find out sooner that Rayner had been at Oxford, and congratulates his performance in the exam.

1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 27/05/2026.