For the Tolkien People on my Friends List... and everyone else.

petzipellepingo passed this link on to me. It seemed a very good time to share it, being Back to Middle Earth Month.

It is a letter written by JRRT in 1938, when there was the possibility of The Hobbit being translated for the German market - providing that his ancestry fitted his Germanic surname... And it is clear that he did not approve of the suggestion that his family history should have any bearing on whether or not Rütten & Loening would publish his book.