285 From a letter to W. H. Auden 

8 April 1966

If my letter to you of February 23rd was a little tan, I must confess that this was caused by the article in the New Yorker purporting to report the meeting of the Tolkien Society in New York and your remarks about me – not to mention Peter Salus' (as reported) nonsense about the shape of Middle-earth. In case you have missed it I enclose a copy. These remarks, if correctly summarised, seem to me so fantastically wide of the mark that I should have to enter into a long correspondence in order to correct your notions of me sufficiently for the purpose. It is also unfortunate that the general Press, with its usual slant towards sneering, fastened on your remarks about my house and pictures. This was the main item in reports in English papers and exposed my wife and myself to a certain amount of ridicule.