231 From a letter to Jane Neave

[Tolkien's aunt Jane Neave, then aged ninety, wrote to ask him 'if you wouldn't get out a small book with Tom Bombadil at the heart of it'.]

4 October 1961

I think your idea about Tom Bombadil is a good one, not that I feel inclined to write any more about him. But I think that the original poem (which appeared in the Oxford Magazine long before The Lord of the Rings) might make a pretty booklet of the kind you would like if each verse could be illustrated by Pauline Baynes. If you have not ever seen the original Tom Bombadil poem I will try and find it and have a copy made for you.