What is the Brighton Manuscript?

Q: What is the Brighton Manuscript?

ANSWER: According to an index card reportedly stolen from either the Bodleian Library at Oxford or the Marquette University Tolkien Archives (sources vary on the source), J.R.R. Tolkien apparently sent a full manuscript to an address in Brighton in January 1973. The Brighton Manuscript subsequently passed from a private collector to an informal fan group that published a series of Tolkien arcana newsletters in the 1970s.

General Reginald Doolittle (Ret.), one of the founding members of the Tolkien Literary Circle of Southern England, gave an interview to a local newspaper in the 1980s recapping the excerpts which were published in the Southern English Tolkien Newsletter (Volumes 1976-8, Issues 34-41). According to the only extant copy of the newspaper interview, which was apparently damaged in a local library fire in October 1993, General Doolittle claimed that the Brighton Manuscript told the full story of Sauron’s rise and fall from the perspective of the Maia himself.

The Doolittle Interview stipulates that the 200-page manuscript, while complete, had been heavily emended and some pages appeared to be either substitutes or replacements for older pages. Rosie Bell, chief archivist for the TLCSE, wrote a thoughtful piece for the Tolkien fan journal ElveNomen around 1988 in which she said that the first three chapters of the manuscript (running to about 86 pages) used a different name for Sauron. In fact, Tolkien is said to have devised several different names for Sauron for he was not always active in his “Sauron/Thauron” guise.

Robert Doolittle III, younger son of General Doolittle, included an excerpt from the Brighton Manuscript in his self-published memoirs in 1998 in which Tolkien purportedly digressed in the fourth chapter with “The Tale of Celeviel and [Nimrunar?]. Doolittle III had assisted his father with some of the analysis of the Brighton Manuscript when he was 21 years old in 1977 before joining the military. The “Tale of Celeviel” has made the rounds in several fannish magazines, each of which appears to have included Mary Sue-style embellishments.

Celeviel is a kinswoman of Thingol Greycloak and Cirdan the Mariner. She spends most of her time dwelling in the city of Brithombar in the Falas of Beleriand. When the Edain enter Beleriand she becomes curious and seeks them out. She meets an Adan in the Vales of Sirion where many members of the Third House have settled for a time. The young Adan is said to have “Elvish strength and wisdom” and Celeviel is smitten with him.

Fearing the wrath of her father, Celeviel and her lover (whom she names [Nimrunar?] in his own language) flee east toward the Ered Luin. They are waylaid by the Noldorin prince Caranthir on the edge of his land. Caranthir, not realizing that [Nimrunar?] is a mortal, berates him for abandoning the Eldar’s war against Angband. When Celeviel prepares to reveal her lover’s true nature (thus exposing herself to the scorn of the Eldar and possible banishment into the wilds of Eriador) [Nimrunar?] offers to perform any deed that Caranthir names to prove himself worthy of the Eldar’s respect.

This is all that survives of the “Tale of Celeviel” so far as I have been able to determine. It does bear some weak resemblance to the story of Beren and Luthien, although he is not mistaken for an Elf by any of Thingol’s people. And yet Tuor was said to have had an Elvish air; one of Hador’s forefathers was also called Adanedhel (“man-elf”) in Sindarin. Hence, the premise of a Marachian man who travels in the guise of an Elf is nothing new to Tolkien scholars.

A serious challenge to the legitimacy of the Brighton Manuscript was raised in the French fanzine Terre du Milieu revue d’histoire in 2002 by Tolkien scholar François Monfort. Monfort apparently traveled to Brighton and claimed to have interviewed several former members of the TLCSE. Two of them suggested that General Doolittle may have bought a forged manuscript. A third interviewee accused Doolittle himself of fabricating the manuscript.

When reached for comment by a small French newspaper (L’Nouvelles Locales par Jour en Montpellier) in 2003 Stanley Doolittle, another of the general’s sons, replied: “Balderdash and Hobbit-foddle. My father was a man of great integrity.” This was, of course, before a retired British Marine’s journal was stolen and excerpts released to London tabloids in which General Doolittle was implied to have assisted an Argentine spy ring during the Falklands War. The general’s family has been fighting the allegations ever since, and it should be noted there is absolutely no publicly available evidence that General Doolittle had any connection with the so-called Hijos de las Malvinas.

The controversy surrounding General Doolittle’s wartime activities has only served to polarize opinions on the whole Brighton Manuscript issue. When I asked one Tolkien scholar about the manuscript last year he asked that I not mention his name if I ever quoted him because he did not want to imperil his relationship with the Tolkien Estate. I inferred that some members of the Tolkien family held the Brighton Manuscript and other such documents (which they have never seen, by all accounts) in contempt and may regard as outright forgeries. However, given the lack of proper legal analysis anyone “worth more than half a pound in the family is unwilling to commit a potential libel”.

The slippery slope of solidifying the tale about the Brighton Manuscript crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 2006 when a letter from the late American Tolkien Scholar Andrew George (d. 1998 in an automobile accident that local news sources revealed had been categorized as “suspicious” by investigating authorities) was briefly put up for auction. Although the lot including the letter was withdrawn after objections were raised on legal grounds, several online sources have cited the “Andrew George Letter” as saying that J.R.R. Tolkien himself sent a signed, certified letter with the manuscript. George claimed to have seen a facsimile of the letter in 1989 while visiting a colleague in Brighton. The original was never made available to him.

Being expert in Tolkien’s handwriting and signature, George all but confirmed the legitimacy of the letter, nonetheless leaving room for doubt by purportedly concluding, “If it was a forgery it was certainly the most clever one in my experience, which I deem to be considerable.”

While doing some quick research on Andrew George’s background I found that he had been a member of an amateur forger’s club while attending university. The club — never sanctioned by George’s university — was popular for “pranking the administration” with fake announcements and student holidays. The forgeries always included a secret signature that could be used in court to prove they were parodies (and thus protected under the principle of freedom of speech). So far as I can determine neither George nor his friends was ever prosecuted for the forgeries.

Given so little information about the Brighton Manuscript one’s curiosity is certainly piqued. For example, what was the purpose of the “Tale of Celeviel”? She must have been connected to the Sauron story; or perhaps more likely her mortal lover [Nimrunar?] may have been sent on a doomed quest by Caranthir; perhaps to spy on Sauron.

In 2007 a small New England college was elevated to temporary prominence after one of the English Department faculty produced and read in public an issue of Southern English Tolkien Newsletter. According to the only source I can find the audience was delighted with the reading, which included a reference to Thuringwethil. If anyone can find more information about the reading I would appreciate the heads up. I’d love to know which issue of the newsletter he read.

To the best of my knowledge copies of Southern English Tolkien Newsletter have never been digitized or made available on the Internet.

So, all that said, at the end of the day we really know very little for sure about the Brighton Manuscript. If it existed it may no longer exist. And if it did exist or still exists we don’t know if it is a forgery or perhaps some sort of bizarre pastiche of Tolkien’s more famous writings. Furthermore the Doolittle family have ceased making public statements regarding the matter. I have been unable to contact François Monfort or the editor/publisher of Terre du Milieu revue d’histoire (which, so far as I can tell, has no Website).

I know for a fact that there were dozens, perhaps hundreds of Tolkien fan newsletters that were published from the 1960s through the 1980s in limited circulations. Most of those old newsletters have probably been lost forever. That such a controversy might have been raised and passed on by two or three of those informal publications is not a very surprising thought.

If only we had the facts. What an interesting tale this could be.

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