Smith of Wootton Major

Copyright

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

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Smith of Wootton Major first published in Great Britain by George Allen & Unwin 1967

Smith of Wootton Major ‘Extended edition’ first published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2005

Copyright © The Tolkien Trust 1967, 2005

Foreword, afterword and notes copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2005

Illustrations copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 1967, 1980

The illustrations and typescript and manuscript pages are reproduced courtesy of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, from their holdings labelled: MS. Tolkien 6, fols. 98r, 99, 3r-v, 4r, 13r-v, 32r-v, 37r-v, 38r, 41-44r-v; and 10, fols. 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 58, 59 (2 images), 60 (detail)

Cover artwork and layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007557288

Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007557295

Version: 2015-02-04

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Note on Orthography and Usage

Foreword

Smith of Wootton Major

Gallery

Afterword

“Genesis of the story”

Tolkien’s draft introduction to The Golden Key

‘The Great Cake’ Time Scheme and Characters

Suggestions for the ending of the story

Smith of Wootton Major essay

Hybrid draft and transcription of ‘The Great Cake’

Lake of Tears drafts and transcriptions

Footnote

Notes

Works by J.R.R. Tolkien

About the Publisher

Note on Orthography and Usage

The transcriptions of Tolkien’s notes, comments and drafts are presented as faithfully as possible within the constraints of sense, clarity and consistency. I have corrected obvious typographical errors, but have tried to conform to his spelling, usage, and punctuation, even when, as sometimes was the case, these were inconsistent from instance to instance.

Verlyn Flieger

Foreword

“DON’T READ THIS! Not yet.”

It was with this unequivocal admonition that J.R.R. Tolkien began his never-finished introduction to a proposed edition of George MacDonald’s The Golden Key. The headline words at the top of the page were aimed at a child reader, as the rest of the rather playful introduction (a transcription of which is included in this volume) makes clear. Nevertheless, whether to child reader or adult reader, Tolkien meant what he said.

He had a strong opinion that editorial introductions were an unnecessary intrusion, for they inevitably came between the story and its reader, and affected the first impression of it. In Tolkien’s view reader and story should first meet face to face with no intermediary. There should be no one to interpret, or tell the reader what the story was about, or what to think of it. The proper “introduction”, Tolkien wrote, should simply be, “Reader, meet The Golden Key.” So strongly did he feel about this that he left off writing his introduction to MacDonald’s story and proceeded instead to write a story of his own, the book you have in your hand, Smith of Wootton Major.

There is much to be said about Smith of Wootton Major, much of it by Tolkien himself, but it can be postponed in favour of the story. Following Tolkien’s instruction, I have placed the introduction to this edition after the story, fitting it in with the end-matter. Don’t read it until after you have read and enjoyed the story. Instead:

Reader, meet Smith of Wootton Major.

Verlyn Flieger

Smith of Wootton Major

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