Which Tolkien work was published posthumously in 1976 as a collection of letters?

The Father Christmas Letters was published posthumously in 1976 as a collection of Tolkien’s letters.

The book gathers letters that Tolkien wrote to his children from 1920 to 1943. He presented them as messages from Father Christmas, often adding drawings and elaborate details about life at the North Pole. The letters created an imaginative family tradition over more than two decades.

The collection includes recurring figures such as the North Polar Bear and provides glimpses of Tolkien’s playful storytelling outside Middle-earth. It also shows how carefully he adapted language, handwriting, illustrations, and invented history to make the correspondence feel authentic to his children.

The book appeared after Tolkien’s death, but it was not a Middle-earth novel assembled from unfinished manuscripts. Its contents originated as private family letters. That distinction makes it especially useful for understanding Tolkien as a parent and illustrator, as well as a writer of epic fantasy.