# Pre-publication knowledge of The Simarillion

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-publication-knowledge-of-the-simarillion/797831>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** middle-earth\
**Created:** [October 2, 2017, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-publication-knowledge-of-the-simarillion/797831 "2017-10-02T23:31:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2020, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-publication-knowledge-of-the-simarillion/797831/21 "2020-12-28T13:41:22Z")

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> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> Someone told me about an unbelievably lucky fan who had his fan letter to Tolkien actually answered

😆  
When I was in elementary school, we were all required to write a letter to an author. I wrote to Tolkien, and I got the worst response of anyone in my class – a form letter saying “Professor Tolkien gets lots of letters and is too busy to answer them”. One girl wrote to Dr. Seuss, and she was the winner. She got a hand-drawn card, and a lovely letter that started, “I get very few letters from my young readers,…”

> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> and, boy, was I disappointed. Tolkien has many writing styles, as I knew from reading his other available works before this. There’s the Listen-to-Grandfather style of THe Hobbit, and the Adventure Story Style of Lord of the Rings and the Tongue In Cheek epic style of Farmer Giles of Ham, but I never expected The Silmarillion to be written in the Dry as Dust Academic Style that many of the entries in The Tolkien Reader were.

Yeah, I’d been begging my parents to buy me The Silmarillion since its publication was announced. I was disappointed, too.

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**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-publication-knowledge-of-the-simarillion/797831/22 "2020-12-28T14:39:57Z")

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well, it’s been years since I read the Carpenter bio, but IIRC Allen & Unwin indicated that they didn’t want _LOTR_ if they had to publish _The Silmarillion_ as well, and for while he flirted with Collins instead. They didn’t like the idea any more than A & U did, and he went back to A & U.

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**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\
**Post date:** [December 28, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pre-publication-knowledge-of-the-simarillion/797831/23 "2020-12-28T14:48:20Z")

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That makes more sense. I don’t believe the Professor ever offered it up for publication after the 40s.

He did start work and abandon a 4th age story that would have taken place after Aragorn had passed.

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