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Re: Tolkien Signatures on eBay???

Subject: Re: Tolkien Signatures on eBay???
by garm on 2009/10/30 16:26:36

Thanks for that. It's what I thought you meant; though I expect you know that this is a photocopy - probably taken from Carpenter's book 'The Inklings', and not (as the B&B would have us believe) a note from the inklings to the pub's landlord!

The note is from a letter of Lewis to Dr. Firor (12th march 1948). It's reprinted in the Collected Letters of CS Lewis Vol.II (1939-1949). The actual note is in the Bodleain Library. The book's editor, Walter Hooper, helpfully gives the shelf number.

I know of one example of a book signed by both Lewis and Tolkien and some of their friends in a group called the 'cave'. Carpenter mentions this group on p.56 of 'The Inklings'. It's a book of anti-war essays by Oxford undergraduates, published in 1938. The title is 'Would I Fight?'. It was given to Leonard Rice-Oxley of Keble College as a prize for the best reading at one of the Cave's meetings. it's signed by all eleven members present that night, inc. Elaine Griffiths. The page containing the prize inscription and the signatures was reproduced in a 1999 catalogue of the Oxford book-dealer Waterfields. See Scull and Hammond vol.2 p.959.