Читать книгу The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien - Christopher Tolkien - Страница 42

[On 8 February, Furth sent a royalty cheque for The Hobbit, and told Tolkien that the middle of June was the latest date by which Allen & Unwin must have the new story if they were going to publish it by Christmas.]

10 February 1939

20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Mr Furth,

Thank you very much for your letter – and the enclosed cheque: which was rather a welcome tonic. The influenza has not damaged me much, though it caught me in a state of exam-exhaustion; but my throat seems to be getting worse, and I don’t feel very bright. . . . .

I will get my stuff typed and let you have it; and (if it meets with approval, and does not demand extensive rewriting) I think I shall make a special effort, at the expense of other duties, to finish it off before June 15th. . . . .

Did Farmer Giles in the enlarged form meet with any sort of approval? (I received the typescript safely.) Is it worth anything? Are two more stories, or any more stories of the Little Kingdom, worth contemplating? For instance the completion in the same form of the adventures of Prince George (the farmer’s son) and the fat boy Suovetaurilius (vulgarly Suet), and the Battle of Otmoor. I just wonder whether this local family game played in the country just round us is more than silly.

Yours sincerely

J. R. R. Tolkien.