TREE AND LEAF

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965. Very good.. Uncorrected proof of the first US edition of Tolkien's long essay on fairy tales, accompanied by an exemplary story - W.H. Auden's copy. Though unsigned, this copy is W.H. Auden's, with his markings in the text and notes (including a list of the seven deadly sins) on the blank verso of the last leaf. Auden famously wrote a 1954 NEW YORK TIMES review raving about THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGS, which in no small part helped legitimize Tolkien in literary circles: "No fiction I have read in the last five years has given me more joy." He also shared a friendly correspondence with Tolkien, exchanging letters frequently over the years and receiving advance copies of the next two installments of the series. He also, the year after TREE AND LEAF appeared, spoke at a New York gathering of the Tolkien Society. Tolkien himself later contributed a lovely poem in Anglo-Saxon and English titled "For W.H.A." as part of a festschrift for Auden's sixtieth birthday in SHENANDOAH. This book, in many ways a critical defense of the kind of stories Auden had previously so lavishly praised, would have undoubtedly been of particular interest. An excellent association and rare in this format. 11'' x 5.5''. Original plastic-comb-bound printed pale blue wrappers. [2], 82 pages. With Auden's marginal marks throughout and his notes on the final leaf. Offsetting and small coffee(?) stains mostly confined on wrappers, a bit musty. Comb intact.