Notes from England - Tolkien's 'other' works...pt. II

So I decided that I wanted to take full advantage of the lovely library of Tolkien's works available to me and read something else that my favourite author wrote. But after the mind-bending endeavor that was The Silmarillion, I needed something more light-hearted.

Enter Roverandom. You may or may not know, but Tolkien was quite happily writing children's stories before he delved deep into the writing of his most famous works such as The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.

Tolkien had already successfully submitted The Hobbit for publication, and it was slowly building its reputation. Meanwhile, he had been accepted to teach at Oxford, and to celebrate he took his family to the seaside for a holiday in the summer before the autumn term began.

While there, his very yougn son, Michael, was playing on the beach with his older brother, John, and he managed to loose his favourite toy - a small dog made of lead and painted black and white. John and his father looked for days for that dog, but they never managed to recover the toy for heartbroken Michael.

To comfort his son, J.R.R. Tolkien came up with a story about a toy dog that was lost on a beach one day by a small boy very much like Michael. The story was added to and expanded over time, partly to amuse Tolkien himself, but also because his publisher had wanted more children's stories for publication...which was why Tolkien submitted The Hobbit to begin with.

The tale was what eventually became Roverandom, and told the story of how a real dog became an enchanted toy after meddling in the affairs of a wizard. Roverandom, as the dog came to be called, had many adventures whilst trying to become a real dog again. Wizards and dragons, traveling to the moon and deep under the sea, and even spotting some familiar far-off elven lands that we later read more about in The Silmarillion are only a few of the highlights of this short, yet charming tale.

Unfortunately, by the time Tolkien had it completed and ready for publication, The Hobbit had become such an enormous success that his publisher wanted a sequel. Enter The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien had many short stories like Roverandom...fairytales, if you will, that never really got looked at further due to the ammount of time he spent on the lands of Middle-earth.

This is a fantastic story for children of any age...even 25 years old, as I found out. I highly recommend you pick it up and read it now.

Questions, comments?