Tolkien Gateway

Letter 24

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
← Letter 24 →
RecipientStanley Unwin
Date18 February 1938
Subject(s)The Lord of the Rings
Out of the Silent Planet
The Lost Road

Letter 24 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

[edit] Summary

Tolkien thanked Unwin's son Rayner for his positive criticism of A Long-expected Party, but regretted that he has still not progressed past this first chapter of a sequel to The Hobbit.

Tolkien brought up C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet, which Allen & Unwin were considering for publication, and gave it his approval. He briefly mentioned the common origin Lewis' work shared with his own unfinished story The Lost Road, and the fact that the protagonist of Out of the Silent Planet shared his name with Unwin and was a philologist like Tolkien.[note 1][note 2]

[edit] Notes

  1. ↑ In the published work the name was changed to 'Elwin Ransom', but the character still bears a similarity to Tolkien.
  2. ↑ Tolkien gave a fuller review of Out of the Silent Planet in Letter 26.
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