Milwaukee university holds 'Rings,' other Tolkien works

MILWAUKEE -- There wasn't much J.R.R. Tolkien threw away in the 14 years he spent writing "The Lord of the Rings" series. Little did he know all those revisions and illustrations about the mystical world of Middle-earth would be worth millions and put Marquette University on the literary map.

The British author used more than 9,000 pages to write, type and doodle his thoughts for the series. Marquette bought that and an insight into his imagination for about $30,600 in today's dollars.

The school got a title page, originally reading "The Magic Ring," which is crossed out and replaced with "The Lord of the Rings." It also picked up one of Tolkien's watercolor paintings that was later used as a blueprint for the cover of "The Hobbit," and penned sketches of an ornate gate, a family tree and a map to a cave. Some of the pages even have old examinations on the back, from Tolkien's days as a professor at Oxford University.

"Tolkien kept everything," said John D. Rateliff, a Tolkien expert in Kent, Wash., who received his Ph.D. in 20th-century British literature from Marquette. "You have the very first draft of the very first chapter ... every version of every chapter all the way through to the end. It's just fascinating to see a writer feel his way toward a story." Some 18 drafts for a single chapter.

Marquette was looking to build its literary collection. It found William Ready, who had created collections at Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley. Hired in 1956, Ready hunted for modern authors who would be interested in sending their works to Marquette.

Ready, who became interested in Tolkien after reading "The Hobbit," hired Bertram Rota, a London rare book dealer, to serve as the agent for Marquette. Rota then wrote to Tolkien and asked for his original manuscripts. Tolkien happened to be worried about his retirement finances and agreed to sell some works to Marquette, said Matt Blessing, the collection's curator.

After some negotiating, Tolkien agreed to sell the manuscripts of "The Lord of the Rings," as well as the "The Hobbit," "Farmer Giles of Ham" and unpublished illustrations of "Mr. Bliss" to Marquette for $4,700 -- about what an autographed first printing costs today, Rateliff said. In all, it received more than 11,000 pages.