A Secret Vice

There are five main parts to this book:

(1) an introduction to the work as a whole, which gives historical context to the act of language creation and Tolkien's involvement in it;

(2) the actual essay A Secret Vice, wherein Tolkien explains his great love and mild embarrassment over his hobby;

(3) Essay on Phonetic Symbolism, wherein Tolkien operates in full linguist mode, trying to wrestle with why some sounds seem better suited to certain concepts (“smash” words for hitting things: smash, clash, thrash, bash; or the “gl-“ words for appearances: glow, glitter, glisten, glower; or how in various languages the word for “cut” has an “s,” “c,” or “k,” sound in it);

(4) the epilogue, Coda: The Reception and Legacy of Tolkien's Invented Languages, wherein the editors of this volume contextualize invented languages today, looking back at Tolkien's work, and how Tolkien's fiction jump started the language-creation act in modern fiction;

and (5) the appendixes (what is a Tolkien book without appendixes?), wherein the authors give the text of the various manuscripts from Tolkien's various drafts of the two essays in this volume. This section is particularly interesting because we can see something of his method and the way his mind worked out an essay, speech, or lecture.

The Monsters and the Critics, and other essays

A Secret Vice