275 From a letter to W. H. Auden

[Auden had invited Tolkien to contribute to a festschrift marking the retirement of Nevill Coghill. He also asked if Tolkien knew that a 'New York Tolkien Society' had been formed, and said he feared that most of the members would be lunatics.]

4 August 1965

I still feel grieved that I haven't anything for Neville's [sic] festschrift. I hope that perhaps an arrangement will be made in the book for people in my position to register their good wishes. The only thing I have ever written about Neville was :

Mr Neville Judson Coghill
Wrote a deal of dangerous doggerill.
Practical, progressive men
Called him Little Poison-pen.

That was at a time when under the name of Judson he was writing what I thought very good and funny verses lampooning forward-looking men like Norwood of St John's.

Yes, I have heard about the Tolkien Society. Real lunatics don't join them, I think. But still such things fill me too with alarm and despondency.