141 From a letter to Allen & Unwin

9 October 1953

The Maps. I am stumped. Indeed in a panic. They are essential; and urgent; but I just cannot get them done. I have spent an enormous amount of time on them without profitable result. Lack of skill combined with being harried. Also the shape and proportions of "The Shire' as described in the tale cannot (by me) be made to fit into shape of a page; nor at that size be contrived to be informative. ....

I feel that the maps ought to be done properly. The 'burned manuscripts', which readers had found engaging, have disappeared, – making the text of Book ii, Ch. 5 at the beginning rather absurd, and losing the Runes which seem a great attraction to readers of all ages (such as are foolish enough to read this kind of thing at all). Even at a little cost there should be picturesque maps, providing more than a mere index to what is said in the text. I could do maps suitable to the text. It is the attempt to cut them down and omitting all their colour (verbal and otherwise) to reduce them to black and white bareness, on a scale so small that hardly any names can appear, that has stumped me.