Tolkien Gateway

Letter 226

From Tolkien Gateway

Letter 226 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

[edit] Summary

This letter, dated Old Year's Day, 1960, was sent to professor L.W. Forster. Tolkien tells him of his influences. Since the writing of The Lord of the Rings had already reached Bree in 1937, the Second World War and the atomic bomb had no influence on the writing. Neither did World War I, though the Dead Marshes owe something to Northern France after the Battle of the Somme. However, it owes more to William Morris' The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains.

[edit] Notes

Though not identified, professor Forster is likely L.W. Forster, Schröder professor in German at Cambridge University.

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