LONDON – A letter signed by J.R.R. Tolkien revealing the identity of Estella Bolger, the wife of one of Frodo’s principal companions, Merry Brandybuck, is to be auctioned in London by Bloomsbury Auctions on Thursday, Oct. 22. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide absentee and Internet live bidding.
The letter, written by the British author’s secretary in response to an inquisitive fan, initially writes that “unfortunately the answer is not recorded.” Tolkien, however, later went back to the letter to add in his own hand: “I believe he married a sister of Fredegar (Fatty) Bolger, but I will look into the matter. I have some records of the family of the Bolgers of Budgeford, whose lands were not far from Buckland but they were for lack of space not included.”
“Any letter from Tolkien is always interesting but to have one in which he materially adds to the Lord of Rings universe is almost unique,” said Max Hasler, 20th century literature specialist at Bloomsbury Auctions commented.
In a note of The People of Middle Earth, a work edited by Christopher Tolkien from the unpublished manuscripts of his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien writes: “On one of his copies of the First Edition he added to the genealogy of the Tooks … ‘Estella’ as the sister of Fredegar and the birth-date 1385; and to the Brandybuck genealogy he added to Meridoc ‘=Estella Bolger 1385’, noting beside this that he told a correspondent in 1965 that ‘I believe he married a sister of Fredegar Bolger of the Bolgers of Budgeford.’”
This Tolkien letter (lot 106) in Bloomsbury Auctions’ 20th Century Books & Works on Paper sale is estimated to achieve £1,500-£2,000 when it goes under the hammer Oct. 22 at their Maddox Street saleroom.
