Letter 223

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
← Letter 223 →
Recipient	Rayner Unwin
Date	31 July 1960
Subject(s)	Rushing to finish work on Ancrene Riwle

Letter 223 is a letter written by J.R.R. Tolkien and published in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary

Lost in a bottomless bog, Tolkien said he was utterly stuck. Having spent so much time to complete The Lord of the Rings he was under extreme pressure, working 10 hours a day, to try to complete the Ancrene Riwle. He had sent the text in September 1958 to the printer, but the manuscript had vanished during the Printing Strike. When the proofs arrived this June he had been working on The Silmarillion and had lost the threads of the other work. Until the proofs of the text went back he could not lift his head.