TCG Letter #275 / Carpenter Letter #123

Tolkien had "dumped" the manuscript of The Lord of the Rings on Milton Waldman^{Of the Collins Publishing Company[1]} just as he was going on holiday, and Tolkien felt bad burdoning him with it at that. Though Tolkien does note that he is excited to see what someone else other than his "few like-minded friends" thinks of it.

Tolkien remarks that he feels he has no legal obligation to GA&U with regard to The Lord of the Rings. He says that he has offered them a book, and that either their refusal to publish it, or their "eventual acceptance" of his other book, Farmer Giles of Ham, concludes that agreement.

Additional portions of this letter are restored in the 2023 revised edition of Letters, with Tolkien mentioning his brother Hilary's health, having trouble recalling a prior letter he hadn't kept a copy of, and noting that he has written to Sir Stanley Unwin, going into more detail about how The Silmarillion is related to The Lord of the Rings and that they need to be published together.

Tolkien will in 1951 write a long letter to Waldman summarising the entire corpus of his Silmarillion and Rings cycle.^{Carpenter #131: Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to Milton Waldman • 1951 (late) (#152)[2]}