TCG Letter #118

A wartime postcard from Tolkien to the Cairo poet Alan Rook, contrasting his own literary inactivity – necessitated by the war effort – with the work of poetry sent to him by the younger man, on which he offers his opinion. Rook had written to Tolkien and included a copy of These Are My Comrades (1943) and Tolkien promises to send him a story to read, certain to be Leaf by Niggle.

This letter was offered up for auction at Dominic Winter, 13 December 2000, lot 360.

Alan Rook (1909-1990) a student at Oxford in the 1930s, had possibly studied under Tolkien, and was editor of the 1936 issue of New Oxford Poetry, the journal to which Tolkien had previously contributed the poem "Goblin Feet" in 1915.