DMRoberts wrote:


Respectfully, I think this description is not adequate for Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to Joan Light • 12 September 1957 (#2472)

He also mentions a mistake in The Lord of the Rings. Hobbits are not referred to as Master or Miss, but G.[ood] Childe.

Tolkien is being slightly self-deprecating while leaning into the found-text pretense in that he writes:

There was one other useful feature of Hobbit-life (besides the unchanging calendar): there was, in fact, only one title of courtesy for all grown-ups, male or female. I am afraid in the "modernization" this is misrepresented on p. 38 (Vol I) [bold added]

I would say not "mistake" but something more like a (fictional) "mistranslation"/"modernization" from Westron/Hobbitish. What is slightly frustrating here is that 'title of courtesy for all grown-ups' here feels like it doesn't apply to Master Took or Miss Melilot, particularly since Good Childe (or Goode Childe? Anyone speak enough Middle English here?) doesn't feel like a grown-up title. So is there a different honorific for adults, in addition to G. Childe that he doesn't specify? Or this is it? I might be wrong in my unease.

Also, the irony of Tolkien complaining of this:

And I am tired of being labelled an "escapist".

when in OFS he calls it out as a good aspect of Faery (and pushed back against the negative connotations). I guess he is of course following the intended (negative) sense of the word, not insisting on his definition and explanation, and pushing back against that.

I have updated the summary.