Letter 188

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Letter 188
Recipient	Allen & Unwin
Date	April 3, 1956
Subject(s)	Translations

Letter 188 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

Allen & Unwin had signed an agreement to publish a Dutch translation of The Lord of the Rings, and asked for Tolkien's approval. Tolkien wrote them that he approved, and offered to assist when words were not found in dictionaries. Tolkien wanted to prevent the disaster that was the Swedish translation of The Hobbit, where he was not consulted. He wrote he asked a Swedish expert to read both the translation and the original; this friend also criticized the translation. Tolkien said that The Lord of the Rings was even dearer to him than The Hobbit, and he hoped his concerns would be taken into account.

Notes

• The "Swedish expert" was not identified, but was probably someone from the Scandinavian department of the University of Oxford.