TCG Letter #2248

Barbara Remington had been commissioned to paint the cover art for the Ballantine paperback edition of The Hobbit under extreme time pressure due to the Ace Books controversy. She was not given time to read the book, and had to work from a very high level summary of the plot, and the painting ended up containing elements such as a grinning lion, emus and a strange tree with pink bulbous fruit. She sent this letter of apology along with a literal olive branch to Tolkien to apologize, saying that she has since become enthralled with The Lord of the Rings and feels that her paintings (which she also did for Ballantine) are not worthy.