The first edition, which appeared in 1976, titled The Father Christmas Letters, was a selection of the letters, some edited and shortened, and included a certain number of the pictures and other visual elements such as stamps and envelopes.
It was to be the first posthumous publication, and the approach was cautious. Christopher was still teaching at Oxford, and immersed in the sorting of his father’s papers, as well as the preparation of Sir Gawain and Pearl for publication, not to mention early research into the state of the ‘Silmarillion’, and as I had previous editorial experience and was obviously readily able to consult Christopher I was asked to look at the letters with a view to their being made into a book. They were of course written in no way for publication, but the idea of making them into a book was appealing. That drawing was the one of the World to be found at the end of the latest edition.ĭrawing by Father Christmas accidentally seen by Christopher Tolkien as a child.Īt the time of my father-in-law’s death in 1973, the letters had been assumed to be lost, so it was a great delight when the whole collection turned up among the vast volume of papers he had kept throughout his life.
Christopher had already begun to have his suspicions - no doubt encouraged by the challenge to his belief in Father Christmas posed by schoolmates - when he came upon a drawing lying on his father’s desk when his father had been called to the telephone. Throughout the period in question, the older children kept the secret as they learned the truth so the younger ones could continue to enjoy the excitement and suspense. In keeping with the atmosphere of the published work, the introduction evades the issue of the true author of the letters who was of course J.R.R. In the course of the twenty-three year period, Snow-elves, Red Gnomes, Snow-men, Cave-bears, and the Polar Bear’s nephews joined Father Christmas and the North Polar Bear, and the adventures developed elements obviously emanating from the same imagination as that which created Middle-earth.
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