Newly published letters by JRR Tolkien detail difficulties publishing Lord of the Rings
The romance between Lord of the Rings characters Arwen and Aragorn is one of the most famous and bittersweet in the history of fantasy fiction. However it was also an issue of dispute for JRR Tolkien while the author was writing the third installment of the trilogy, Return of the King.
An unpublished letter from Tolkein to his publisher, Rayner Unwin, in 1955 will be auctioned at Bonhams on March 19. Unwin famously gave the reader's report of The Hobbit, aged 10, to his father Stanley that urged him to publish it in case the publishing firm lose "a thousand pounds".
In the lengthy letter, Tolkein wrote that his contemporary, the poet WH Auden, "thinks Aragorn-Arwen unnecessary & perfunctory. I hope the fragment of the 'saga' will cure him. I still find it poignant: an allegory of naked hope. I hope you do..."....