We have a long way to go, and there is time ahead for thought.
| The Golden Key | |
|---|---|
| Publication Information | |
| Author | George MacDonald |
| Released | 1867 |
| Format | Hardback & paperback |
The Golden Key is fairy-tale written by George MacDonald that was published in Dealings with the Fairies in 1867.[1] J.R.R. Tolkien was once sought to write a preface to The Golden Key, but abandoned it after it began to grow into Smith of Wootton Major.[2]
Overview
In 1964, Tolkien was asked to write a preface to an American edition of MacDonald's short story The Golden Key. While accepting the commission, for the reason that he thought "well of this story of his", Tolkien never finished the preface, and wrote in a letter to the publishers that "I am not as warm an admirer of George MacDonald as C.S. Lewis was".[3]
In "An Interview with Tolkien", Henry Resnick (Niekas Issue 18, 1967) Tolkien said:
As a matter of fact, insofar as... without harping or preaching on the side of various rather old-fashioned things like humility, valor, and so on... and courage, you can carry [on] those over and I think it has rather an effect on people — young folks are ready in their attitudes to rather be changed. But I didn't intend these things, because I didn't write it for children. That's why I don't like George MacDonald very much; he's a horrible old grandmother. That's a very find woman figure, of course, really — the Queen is rather a mother.
Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull have argued that Tolkien, when re-reading The Golden Key and other of MacDonald's works for the preparation of the foreword, apparently reconsidered his former admiration on the grounds that the stories often contained a narrator's voice and too much of moral lecturing reminding of the literary style of The Hobbit (a style which Tolkien had regretted later in life). Hammond and Scull further quote from a manuscript, held at the Bodleian Library, where Tolkien writes that "a highly selective memory had retained only a few impressions of things that moved me, and re-reading G[eorge] M[acDonald] critically filled with me distaste".[4]
Synopsis
Tolkien's draft introduction
Genesis of Smith of Wootton Major
External links
References
- ↑ Colin Nicholas Manlove (1992), Christian Fantasy: from 1200 to the Present, pp. 168-9
- ↑ Humphrey Carpenter, J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography
- ↑ J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 262, (dated 7 September 1964)
- ↑ Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond (2006), The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: II. Reader's Guide, pp. 570-1