With the upcoming publication of “The Bovadium Fragments” — following the recent Collected Poems, Nature of Middle-earth, Battle of Maldon, and continuing issues of Parma Eldalamberon — we might take a moment to consider how much else is left of Tolkien’s unpublished work and whether any of what remains is publishable. In the past, folks have collected lists of what was then unpublished (like this one), but today, in 2025, most of these works have now appeared in print.
Apart from academic papers, of which there is still a very
great deal indeed — hundreds of pages, I believe; and the diaries and private
papers, which are likely enough never to be published; and the remaining
unpublished linguistic material, including satellite material of a philological
nature like The Book of the Foxrook
(part of the Tolkien Family Papers); there are still some bits and bobs that
might still be published one of these days.
One of these is an odd short story called “The Orgog”, “a
strange, convoluted tale of an odd creature travelling through a fantastic
landscape” [1]. Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull hypothesize that the unfinished
story relates to a watercolor of 1924.
I’ve wondered whether “orgog” might relate to “ogre”,
perhaps connected with Hilary Tolkien’s (and Ronald’s) childhood tales of black
and white ogres. Or there is the character of Orgoglio from Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. That work was more to
Lewis’s taste than Tolkien’s, but you never know. In that work, Orgoglio is a monster
who attacks Redcross Knight in Book One, Canto VII. The name, interestingly
enough, is Italian for “pride”, from Vulgar Latin *orgollium, in turn from Proto-West Germanic *urgollju “pride, arrogance”.
But these are no more than guesses, since I haven’t seen it.
Others have but aren’t at liberty to say more. In any case, I was told it “really
isn’t in a state suitable for publication” (private correspondence).
There’s another incomplete short-story called “The King of
the Green Dozen”, described by Tolkien as “an unfinished pseudo-Celtic
fairy-story of a mildly satirical order, which is also amusing as far as it has
gone” [2]. So, that’s two unfinished short stories, which might or might not be
fit for publication or hold any real interest for readers. But likely enough,
they’ll end up in print someday anyway — if I were to bet on it.
And then there is “The Ulsterior Motive” (1964), an
unpublished piece of nonfiction critiquing — harshly it would seem — C.S. Lewis’s
Letters to Malcolm, which had been published
after his death. This manuscript is heavily restricted and seems not to be
destined for publication any time soon, maybe never, because of the sensitive and
personal nature of the reproach. Humphrey Carpenter quoted part of a paragraph from
it in his book, The Inklings (p. 50),
and A.N. Wilson carries that same quote on by another sentence or two (p. 135–6).
Wilson gives us a bit more summary and spares us one further short quotation, in
which Tolkien refers to Lewis’s “anti-Catholic mythology” (p. 217). I feel no
need to reproduce these descriptions and quotations here — they can be found elsewhere.
I’m more interested in the title.
While the play on words, “ulsterior motive” (“ulterior
motive”) is clever, it’s not original to Tolkien. Far from it. Many before
Tolkien, it seems, used this particular turn of phrase connoting the hidden goals
and conflicts, religious and political, within Ireland and between Ireland and
England.
The earliest example of something similar, not identical,
that I’ve found occurs in a letter from November 1880:
Next to open and secret enemies, indiscreet friends are, perhaps, the most disagreeable of created beings. Unfortunate Mr. Boycott, who wanted a score, at most, of Northern men to get in his crop, has been threatened with an invasion from Ulster. The opposition of the Government to such ‘Ulsterior’ measures, as a Galway man called them to-day [sic], has at least had the effect of moderating the rancour of the relief expedition. [3]
A little later, in an 1892 issue of Punch, two puns for the price of one in a letter to the editors on
the subject of Home Rule in Ireland, a big topic of the day:
“NE PLUS ULSTER.” — Decidedly, Ulster can’t go beyond “its last”, or rather, its latest, most utter utterances. So far, “words, words, words” [a reference to Hamlet, I take it]; but from words to blows there is a long interval, especially when their supply of breath having been considerably exhausted, there is not much to be feared from their “blows”. However, so far, the men with Ulsterior views have been patted on the back by the Times […] [4]
Not surprisingly, these phrases become much more common in
the years leading up to and following the partitioning of Ireland in 1921.
In 1909, again on the demand for Home Rule:
There are those, I know, who cannot read the records of three or four hundred years ago without wanting to go out and lick the opposition. […]
But even granting that I was animated by no ulterior — or shall we say Ulsterior? — motives, there are those who complain that the historical references were unfair, tending to accuse one side and excuse the other. [5]
In 1918, on the same
topic:
Having scotched political self-determination at home, they [the Loyalists; those in favor of Ireland’s remaining in the United Kingdom] became seized of a praiseworthy ambition to confer that denied benefit upon the unenlightened foreigner. As for the mere Irish, they gradually realized the symbolism of this loyal gesture, the Ulsterior motive became apparent: the war was on behalf of the small nations, but one had been forgotten. [6]
In 1920, as part of a lengthy humorous “catechism” for
Irishmen in Cartoons Magazine:
Q. When will the British sojers [i.e., soldiers] be taken out of Ireland?
A. In the mornin’.
Q. When will the north cease to be guided by Ulsterior motives?
A. In the morning’.
Q. When will the south love the Carsoneers like she loves Dublin Castle?
A. In the morning’. [7]
And so on at great length, ending with a final refrain of “in
the mornin’”. To be honest, I don’t have the cultural and historical context to
appreciate the humor here, but it was evidently deemed worth printing.
In 1921, seven months or so after the partitioning of Ireland
was enacted, an interesting comparison to the political situation in the Orange
Free State, in which Tolkien himself had been born a bit less than thirty years
before, made here in reference to a piece that had appeared in the Evening News.
It was extraordinary, perhaps, how quietly London took the news yesterday, and particularly last night. There was a buzz of excitement in one very English St. James Street club, when Mr. Michael Collins was taken in there for a meal; and there were a few colourless jests as to whether Ulster would now claim the title of Orange Free State, whether there was an “Ulsterior” motive about the settlement, and how long it would be before Ireland had a postage stamp of her own. [8]
And finally, a piece more in line with my own interests —
and Tolkien’s, Americanisms notwithstanding — from Philological Quarterly in 1930. Here, alongside “plattitudes” as a
pun on the Platt Amendment in the United States, and the humorous division of the
Anglican Church into Platitudinarians, Latitudinarians, and Attitudinarians, we
get this bit:
A pun as well as a blend may have been intended by him who before the War suggested that Mr. Lloyd George, in his dealings with Ireland, had “Ulsterior motives”. [9]
Clearly enough, judging by these several and varied examples, the pun was rather often used and may have been a commonplace, may have even become passe, by the time Tolkien adopted it in 1964. But will we ever see this piece in print? Hard to say for sure, but I wouldn’t lay money on it.
[1] Hammond, Wayne G. and Christina Scull. J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator.
Houghton Mifflin, 1995, p. 77.
[2] See Tolkien’s Letters, p. 40; see also Letters, p. 436
for a very brief summary by Carpenter.
[3] Becker, Bernard H. Disturbed Ireland: Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880–81. Macmillan, 1881, p. 127.
[4] Punch, or The London Charivari. Vol. CII, 25 June 1892, p. 305.
[5] Sutherland, Hugh. Ireland: Yesterday and Today. The North American Co., 1909, p. 258.
[6] Gnathaí gan Iarraidh [E. A. Boyd], The Sacred Egoism of Sinn Féin, Maunsel & Co., 1918, p. 5. Here, the clever (and maybe prejudiced) used of “scotched” is rather telling!
[7] Cartoons Magazine, Vol. 17, No. 4, April 1920, p. 551.
[8] Stamp Collectors Fortnightly, 24 December 1921, p. 418.
[9] Withington, Robert. “Some New ‘Portmanteau’ Words.” Philological Quarterly, Vol. IX, No. 2, April 1930: 158–64, p. 160.
