Letter 111

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
Letter 111
Recipient	Sir Stanley Unwin
Date	21 September 1947
Subject(s)	Forwarding the 31 July letter with new material

Letter 111 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

Tolkien stated that he had written a letter to Unwin on the last day of July but had laid it aside since it seemed too much of a bother about his works.

He had mainly devoted his time to philology as he had a colleague from Liege with whom he had done research before the war and who stayed with him while they prepared their work for press. He was about to spend a few days performing college business so he was sending the long-delayed letter.

In between research and journey he had tried to squeeze in revising Book II of The Lord of the Rings. He was sending this material under a separate cover for Rayner and Stanley to critique. Some chapters had been rewritten so that there would be no repetition. He also sent the preliminary chapter of the Forward: "Concerning Hobbits" which linked to the earlier book and answered questions that had been asked.