JRR Tolkien’s new letters revealed

A new collection of letters will shed light on the personality of one of the world’s literary giants, JRR Tolkien.

The Lord of the Ringsand The Hobbitauthor is credited as being one of the bestselling writers of all time, with over 150 million copies being sold of his fantasy adventure series.

Tolkien did not believe himself to be an inventor, but a conduit for his work, and his life behind-the-scenes has been kept relatively private.

However, new documents released as part of a largely unpublished correspondence, reveal that the writer and philologist was meticulous with his craft and especially frustrated by sloppiness.

Writing about a typist’s careless work on a manuscript, he hit out: “She reduced [my manuscript] to nonsense. I have some sympathy with the typist faced with such unfamiliar matter; though evidently she wasn’t paying much attention.”

He also mocked her confusion of “poche for poetic, highballs(!) for high halls, and arias for cries”, according to The Guardian.