Letter 120

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
← Letter 120 →
Recipient	Allen and Unwin
Date	16 March 1949
Subject(s)	Approval of Pauline Baynes' illustrations

Letter 120 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

Pauline Baynes had been contracted to illustrate Farmer Giles of Ham. Tolkien had not seen her pictures until the day before. He wrote to say that he was pleased beyond even the expectations aroused by the first examples. They were more than illustrations, he extolled, they were a collateral theme. Friends politely commented that they reduced his text to commentary on the drawings.