(WPF) Letters From Father Christmas / J R R Tolkien - 4****

[Book Concierge]

Letters From Father Christmas – J R R Tolkien
4****

This lovely volume – I had the centenary edition – duplicates the letters from Father Christmas which were sent to Tolkien’s children beginning in 1920 and continuing for the next twenty-three years. The letters relate the many adventures Father Christmas and his helpers – The North Polar Bear, elves, etc – have both in preparation for the big day and throughout the year.

Tolkein seriously disguised his handwriting / printing, using a very shaky hand that is quite difficult for these old eyes, so I’m grateful for the printed text accompanying the photos of each letter. If I were a young person I would probably try to memorize Polar Bear’s unique alphabet and use that to write notes to my friends (something I did with Tolkein’s Elven runes back in the day after reading The Hobbit ). I much enjoyed the inventiveness of these missives and loved the hand-drawn illustrations of the Northern Lights, or a Goblin War, or a flood caused by … well, I won’t spoil it for you.

My only disappointment is that we don’t see any of the letters Tolkien’s children wrote back to Father Christmas.

Still, it’s a treasure to be enjoyed by more generations of both children and adults.


LINK to my review

[Theresa]

I saw originals of many of those letters at the Morgan Library Tolkein exhibit a few years ago ... same as was at The Bodleian in Oxford a couple years before that I believe. I found them so incredibly charming! I too have the published collection ... 2 different editions actually. They never lose their charm.

[Book Concierge]

I seem to recall that Marquette University has an extensive collection of Tolkien's original manuscripts. I wonder if some of these letters are in that collection. I never tried to access them when I was a student there, however.