Theory: The Lord of the Rings was Nearly Foiled by a Toy Dog.

[HLGStrider]

INTERESTING THEORY: If Tolkien had published Roverandom, he never would have become more than a one-hit children's book writer.

I got Roverandom for my birthday and finished reading it that night. It was an entertaining book. I adored it, but I know it is less in the spirit of "true-Tolkien" than even the Hobbit, which was written around the same time Tolkien began his first typed version of the story. Roverandom has a loose plot, a lot of gimmicky additions, and in places is almost "Disneyified" in its manner. Roverandom is not a great work but simply a good one.

I read in the foreword that when Tolkien was asked by his publishers to submit more work after the Hobbit, he tried a package on them that included Roverandom, Farmer Giles of Ham, and Mr. Bliss. These were considered but, because the publisher truly wanted a sequel to the Hobbit not a new story, rejected. After that, Tolkien set these works asside and began his masterpiece, the Lord of the Rings, as the second Hobbit.

Now, I am putting forth a scenario where Allen & Unwin said "OK" to Roverandom and possibly the rest of the manuscripts. No longer being bothered to produce a second Hobbit, Tolkien would have sunk himself into the Silmarillion, a work the publishers never wanted. I simply don't see him starting a Hobbit sequel without pressure from publishers and fans.

The Lord of the Rings only became the epic section of Middle Earth history far into the writing. Originally it was no more than a second children's story, again the Hobbit. Being apart from his true love, the histories of Elvenkind, Hobbits would have taken a backseat to other work.

Roverandom is good, but there is no way the author of it would be hailed for a century as a great storyteller. It most likely would be out of print by now, dusty, and Tolkien only remembered for the Hobbit, and that only by the young at heart.

Roverandom failed that Tolkien might live. . .

Or am I being too harsh?

Was the Lord of the Rings simply too much a part of the legendarium to stay unthought of?

 

[Arvedui]

I don't think that the answer to your question lies with The Lord of the Rings, itself. It can be found in The Hobbit. That book was simply too good, and the readers wanted more about hobbits.

So maybe if Allen & Unwin had been a publishing-house with a great success, and hadn't felt the need to give the audience what they wanted, then The Lord of the Rings probably wouldn't have happened, and The Silmarillion would never have been published, I guess.

 

[HLGStrider]

Well, it also would have depended on whether A&U recognized it as a call for more Hobbits, as it was generally stated, or simply thought their audience was calling for more Tolkien and would be satisfied with anything by the author, even if the creature was a toy dog instead of a Hobbit.


Though admittedly, an author is usually encouraged to stay within a mold for his second book and make it as close to a sucessful first book as possible, which is in part what is so amazing about the Lord of the Rings. While it is about Hobbits it is a very different story from the original.

 

[Eledhwen]

Also, didn't Tolkien toy with the idea of going to another publisher? If that had happened, maybe there would be a "Dear Mr Tolkien, though I can see you have put much work into this novel, I am afraid we must reject it. The story wanders off the point in many places, and spends far too much time in what is little more than retrospective conversation. Several major characters remain undeveloped and the text goes on for so long on one track, leaving other story threads in limbo, that we feel the reader would lose track of the overall plot. We will instead publish the shorter story you sent to us about an enchanted toy dog, which may have some small success."

Phew! Aren't we glad that didn't happen.

 

[Arvedui]

Tolkien was not merely toying with that idea: he was actively pursuing it. I don't quite remember the details, but I think that the main reason was that he wanted The Silmarillion published as well.
The correspondance regarding this can be found in The Letters.

 

[Eledhwen]

I remember reading it there, but my copy of 'Letters' is under a pile of paper somewhere, and in such circumstances I always underplay what my memory tells me I know, in case I'm exaggerating to myself. I feel that the reviews given of Tolkien's work by Rayner Unwin were the main reason The Hobbit and LotR were published. The reviewer at (Collins?) may well have been an 'expert', who would look more closely at the writing style and the economics of post-war production. Actually, didn't the second publisher turn it down? I must find that book!

 

[Aldanil]

Re: the Master's missive that's been mentioned (and its implications)

Its Letter #131, to Milton Waldman (at the British publishing house of Collins, as has previously been indicated), written sometime in 1951 and running, even with a significant abridgement toward the end, nearly eighteen full pages long in the collection that Humphrey Carpenter (who just died earlier this month, alas, as English Eledhwen may well have read in the paper) edited with Christopher's assistance, himself a part of that very first audience for rather silly stories about a very clever toy dog. The question that arises in my mind in reading it is, what would have happened had Collins accepted? Given that our dear John Ronald spent the rest of his life working (often only fitfully, it must be admitted) on The Silmarillion and left it yet unfinished for his son's completion, in what form or semblance might it have then been published had Waldman promptly written back to say, "I really love it, Professor! We'll take them both!"?

 

[Eledhwen]

I suspect Collins wouldn't have got anything on the Sil immediately, and we would have read many more excuse letters in "The Letters of JRRT"; but maybe he would have focused his mind on completing it for publication if that prospect appeared to be imminent. But whether that finished book would have made his publisher happy is another question. If the LotR didn't follow publishing canon, The Silmarillion certainly didn't, in the form CT edited it.

 

[Kuduk]

Roverandom failed that Tolkien might live. . .

I may have been looking at a different edition but the editors (Scull & Hammond) there claim that Roverandom in fact had been given an equally positive review by the younger Unwin and tentative plans had been made to go ahead and publish it. However, that was just prior to The Hobbit's release, and its sudden and unexpectedly large success led everyone (including Tolkien) to put Roverandom aside and essentially forget about it. So one could argue that rather than a toy dog almost foiling LOTR, it was the opposite: the toy dog was foiled (and very successfully so) by a hobbit!

And this would have been particularly ironic since Scull & Hammond also suggest that the warm reception given to the Roverandom tales by family and friends may have gotten Tolkien thinking that his stories might have a wider audience in the first place and encouraged him to write some of them (including The Hobbit) down for publication. So if these editors are to be believed on this point, one could argue then if the young Michael Tolkien had not lost his toy dog on the beach, his father would never have been inspired to create Roverandom and thus may never have gained the confidence to submit The Hobbit to a publisher.

A toy dog was lost so that a hobbit could be born!

 

[Eledhwen]

A toy dog was lost so that a hobbit could be born!

A well argued supposition. The story of the emergence of Roverandom from Michael's lost dog, then, is down to the heart of a father for his son.

 

[HLGStrider]

I may have been looking at a different edition but the editors (Scull & Hammond) there claim that Roverandom in fact had been given an equally positive review by the younger Unwin and tentative plans had been made to go ahead and publish it. However, that was just prior to The Hobbit's release, and its sudden and unexpectedly large success led everyone (including Tolkien) to put Roverandom aside and essentially forget about it. So one could argue that rather than a toy dog almost foiling LOTR, it was the opposite: the toy dog was foiled (and very successfully so) by a hobbit!


A toy dog was lost so that a hobbit could be born!

Well, we read the same basic words, but we took them differently. I took it that the Hobbit was already projected to be a success and so they wanted more from the author but not Roverandom. It could be thought of that way, of course, in fact, your way makes more sense as an explanation, so I'll cede to it.

 

[Kuduk]

...your way makes more sense as an explanation, so I'll cede to it.

Very kind of you, Elgee, but no need to cede anything. I was simply putting forth the counter-proposition that LOTR's coming into existence was essentially driven by The Hobbit's success, and so Roverandom's publication should have been more or less irrelevant.

However, your idea is very intriguing, Elgee, and if I may, I'd like to rephrase it as question. Let's suppose that Roverandom was published after all and contemporaneous with The Hobbit. How would it have affected Tolkien as he wrote LOTR?

If Roverandom were not to have done well, then I would guess it would have been quickly forgotten and everyone would have gone back to looking forward to a proper Hobbit sequel. But what if Roverandom had been as successful as The Hobbit? (which, by the way, I don't think would have been the case since I agree with you, Elgee, that Roverandom is not a great work) Would Tolkien have felt compelled to include the Toy Dog in some way or even *gasp* to leave out the hobbits altogether?

Just imagine Frodo struggling up the slopes of Mount Doom with his trustworthy companion.... a Toy Dog