I had exactly the same picture as Rowns (it could easily happen in Beren's library!), even when knowing, like Rowns, that Beren meant something else.

This has been a fascinating conversation - and all starting from a simple question!

wellinghall

To take this discussion further, another example of evidently the same questionable typewriting as the pieces on abebooks, with a variant of the same signature, and again only (as it appears) part of a letter, has been listed for sale at auction on 16 October; see http://www.bloomsburyauctions.com/detail/664/246.0. The same lot is also on eBay. This piece is clearly made up of extracts, occasionally with slight twists, from Tolkien's (autograph) letter to Jennifer Paxman of 26 September 1947, most recently sold by Maggs Bros. Its text is still available at http://www.maggs.com/title/AU4148.asp. Since it seems inconceivable that Tolkien either typed (and signed as if for transmittal) a variant of his letter to Miss Paxman before writing a fuller version in manuscript, or wrote (and typed with atypical clumsiness) nearly the same words to someone else who would be personally familiar with "Aunt Jane", the authenticity of the new item has to be called into question.

(Jennifer Paxman is the daughter of Colin Brookes-Smith, whose family had a close relationship with Tolkien's Aunt Jane Neave. Tolkien signed his letters to her "Ronald Tolkien" or "Uncle Ronald".)

Wayne

One might also form the impression that the shorter item on abebooks (the 'Earendel-sentence') bears the same relation to the Maggs description of the Levinson card as the Bloomsbury item does to the Paxman letter ...

I would also submit that the occurrence in the typed "version" of "moon-lather", taken litteratim from the Maggs Bros. transcript, proves that the typed letter is a fraud. "Moon-lather" must be a misreading (by the Maggs transcriber) of "moon-letter" (those familiar with Tolkien's handwriting will not be surprised that someone unfamiliar with it or with _The Hobbit_ would make this mistake), and is certainly not something would ever _type_. (Not to mention all the other typos: Tolkien would _never_ have left so many uncorrected errors in a sent letter.)

Carl