173 From a letter to Katherine Farrer

[The Return of the King was duly published on 20 October.]

24 October 1955

Since (in spite of being laid up with a throat that made lecturing impossible until last Friday) I have actually managed to deliver the O'Donnell Lecture on English and Welsh (Friday), and am no longer a college official, and the Book is complete – except for an errata slip for the reprint already required for Vol. III, to cover the important errors of the whole: I shall be a great deal freer after this week. ....

I am indeed surprised at the reception of the 'Ring', and immensely pleased. But I don't think I have started any tide. I don't think such a small hobbitlike creature, or even a Man of any size, does that. If there is a tide (I think there is) then I am just lucky enough to have caught it, being just a bit of it. ....

I still feel the picture incomplete without something on Samwise and Elanor, but I could not devise anything that would not have destroyed the ending, more than the hints (possibly sufficient) in the appendices.