270 To Rayner Unwin

[Tolkien had sent Unwin the typescript of his new story Smith of Wootton Mayor. It seemed to Unwin to need the companionship of other stories to make a sufficiently large book. This suggestion came just as Tolkien was revising The Lord of the Rings, so as to produce a new edition that would be protected by U.S.A. copyright. The need for this arose because an American publisher had issued an unauthorised paperback edition of the book, without the consent of Tolkien or Allen & Unwin, and (at first) without paying royalties.]

20 May 1965

76 Sandfield Road, Headington, Oxford

Dear Rayner,

Thank you very much for the return of Smith ofWootton Major. I am delighted that it pleased you, as I was quite unable to make my own mind up about it without your assistance. I am afraid there is nothing of similar sort or length deep among my papers. There is a lot of unfinished material there, but everything belongs definitely to the Silmarillion or all that world. To which I should now be in only a few days returning, if it was not for this infernal copyright business. I shall be sending you the remainder of the text of Gawain and my comments on the specimen pages you sent me, to reach you I hope by Monday next. I cannot produce the prefatory note or the commentary until the revision of The Lord of the Rings is finished. I shall have to work hard to get it to Boston by July 1.

Yours sincerely,
Ronald Tolkien.

PS. I am now inserting in every note of acknowledgement to readers in the U.S.A. a brief note informing them that Ace Books is a pirate, and asking them to inform others.