136 To Rayner Unwin

[Allen & Unwin decided to publish The Lord of the Rings in three volumes, priced at twenty-one shillings each. Tolkien's contract stipulated that the manuscript of the book should be delivered, ready for the printer, by 25 March 1953. The publishers had also asked him to write a description of the book for publicity purposes, in not more than a hundred words.]

24 March 1953

99 Holywell, Oxford

Dear Rayner,

I have intended for some time to write to you, as the 'contract day', 25 March, steadily drew nearer, and found me still enmeshed in troubles that gathered upon me the moment I had signed. And here I am on the eve.

In brief what has happened to me is above all my wife's increasing ill health, which has involved me in various distresses since November. On a doctor's ultimatum I was obliged to spend most of what time I could spare from duties in finding and negotiating for the purchase of a house on high dry soil and in the quiet. I am in fact now in 'articule mortis', or it almost feels like that – in fact in the very act of a household-removal. Nothing could be more disastrous. In addition the ill will of Mordor decreed that I myself should lose most of the vital Christmas Vacation being ill. There was no chink in the armour of last term; and I am now still involved as chairman in controlling the setting of all the honours English papers for June, and a week behind at that.

I am afraid I must ask for your lenience in the matter of the date. But I see some hope in your letter, since it appears that the first 2 books would suffice to keep the ball rolling. I practically completed a detailed revision of these before disasters overtook me; and I can let you have them by the end of this month.

Would it be useful if I sent now at once the first book (the longest of all), which is quite ready, and is matched by a spare corrected copy? If you care to wire or phone me, I could despatch Book I tomorrow.

I am v. sorry to be a nuisance; but you may guess how painful it is to me that what should be a labour of delight should have been transformed into a nightmare, by the gathering upon 1953 of so many duties and troubles.

Between 23 April and June 171 hope to have enough leisure to put the bulk of the later books (which need little revision) into order, so as not to hold things up once started. But I go into a tunnel of examinations from I7 June to 27 July which will give me 12 hours work a day. After that I shall lift my battered head, I hope. I am resigning from Exams anyway; but I could not get out of it this year.

If you could give me any hints as to what your publicity department requires, it would help my battered wits. How can I describe the book clearly and emphasize its special interest in a hundred words? Perhaps I could get someone else who has read it, like C.S.L., to help? ....

Yours ever
J. R. R. Tolkien.

P.S. I have given some thought to the matter of sub-titles for the volumes, which you thought were desirable. But I do not find it easy, as the 'books', though they must be grouped in pairs, are not really paired; and the middle pair (III/IV) are not really related.

Would it not do if the 'book-titles' were used: e.g. The Lord of the Rings: Vol. I The Ring Sets out and The Ring Goes South; Vol. II The Treason of Isengard, and The Ring goes East; Vol. III The War of the Ring, and The End of the Third Age'?

If not, I can at the moment think of nothing better than : I The Shadow Grows II The Ring in the Shadow III The War of the Ring or The Return of the King. JRRT.