502 pages
English language
Published Jan. 21, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Co..
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien is a selection of J. R. R. Tolkien's letters published in 1981, edited by Tolkien's biographer Humphrey Carpenter assisted by Christopher Tolkien. The selection from a large mass of materials contains 354 letters, dating between October 1914, when Tolkien was an undergraduate at Oxford, and 29 August 1973, four days before his death. The letters are of interest both for what they show of Tolkien's life and for his interpretations of his Middle-earth writings.
While there are some gems in this collection and it serves as a good supplement to other Tolkien criticism / the 12 History of Middle Earth volumes, its index is quite limited in usefulness and the volume would greatly benefit from an updated organizational apparatus.
