TCG Letter #223 / Carpenter Letter #98

Tolkien expresses deep concern about Rayner, who is off to war, and mentions that his son Christopher has become great friends with Chris Unwin. One of Christopher's group-mates has been killed in his first flight in a Hurricane, and Tolkien is "gnawed out with anxiety." He has sent most everything he has written for the Hobbit sequel to Christopher, but has squandered most of his writing time on letters rather than the book.

Tolkien offers up Niggle, and two other stories, and asks if Farmer Giles is still being considered, and goes on at length about how he wants to get the The Silmarillion published. He closes with a lengthly list of all the other projects he is responsible for.

Douglas Anderson quotes this letter^{The Annotated Hobbit (Revised edition, 2002), p.384[1]} from an unpublished postscript where Tolkien mentions the Foyle's Hobbit dustjacket being "hideous" and a "waste of paper".

This letter is marked "received" by George Allen & Unwin on March 19, a Monday. Scull and Hammond thus surmise it must have been mailed either Saturday or Sunday (noting that it was still possible for a letter to get from Oxford to London on the same day at this time).^{Private correspondence[2]}