TCG Letter #285

This undated letter sent sometime between January 1956 and April 1958 concerns an Elvish passage as noted by Anders Stenström. He noted an Elvish passage in one of the letters in the Sotheby's auction lot: "Another letter to Peter Alford, from the years 1956-58 provides a lengthy discussion of the Elvish greeting: Elen síla lúmenn' ómentielmo. One thing attracts our attention: Tolkien explains the pronominal possessive suffix -lma as a variety of -lme 'we' which in fact means: 'you and I/we'. The Quenya verb sil- 'shine white' is derived - according to this letter - from the stem ÞIL-." No other details of this letter are known.

Excerpts of the letters were published in Sotheby's Valuable Printed Books and Manuscripts 13 December 2001.