222 From a letter to Rayner Unwin

[Unwin had encouraged Tolkien to prepare his translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Pearl for publication.]

9 December 1959

My delay in answering your letter of December 3rd is mainly due to the fact that I have become immersed again in work in which you are interested. I am afraid that you may be perturbed rather than surprised (knowing too well the vagaries of authors, or at least of mine), to hear that this is in wrong order. With the help of my secretary I have been charging well ahead with the reconstruction of the Silmarillion etc. Your letter comes as a timely if unwelcome jerk on the reins. Quite clearly I must take up Gawain immediately. I shall not manage it before Christmas; but I recently ordered and inspected the material and I do not think that the actual text of the translation of Gawain and of Pearl now need very much work. I shall be able to let you have the text of the two poems soon after Christmas; they can be set up separately. I am still a little uncertain about what other matter to add to them by way of introduction or notes. I think very little, since people who buy the translations will probably belong to one of two classes: those who just want the translation, and those who have access to editions and other full treatments of the problems presented by the poems.