TCG Letter #243 / Carpenter Letter #187

Tolkien describes himself as a philologist, and sometime calligrapher. An index of Elvish names was intended to be produced, noting that his 'specialist' volume would have been largely about linguistics. He goes on to mention that he worked for months on some facsimile images of the 'Book of Mazarbul', which modern readers will not look at when reading their copies, but time and costs prevented the inclusion of them, along with much of his material on Elvish languages.

Tolkien then notes the various information's that readers are asking for, Geological, Elvish grammar, musical notations, archaeology. Others want information on political and historical matters, on ceramics, botany, and on. Tolkien says though that his wish is to conclude the matter of his Silmarillion.

The 2023 revised edition of Letters significantly increases the size of this letter - more than doubling.

H. Cotton Minchin had written to Tolkien with many suggestions, one being that he could publish The Silmarillion as a 'specialist' volume, noting that he had also entertained this idea,^{Hammond and Scull note that even if Tolkien had discussed this with Allen & Unwin, it was never a serious consideration. See Chronology, p. 857n.[1]} but costs would be prohibitive. And he now has the pressure of dealing with academic and professional matters, some of which come with binding commitments.

He says that producing maps takes a "great deal of time", and notes that one cannot make a map after the story, for the map must come first. He says that it was his son, Christopher Tolkien who produced the maps. He blames spelling errors on himself, noting that the map still reads Kirith as Christopher argued that no one will ever say it correctly.

He then concludes with some matters on names, his own origins, and gives a commentary of the name "Cotton".

This published letter, a draft, would be followed by the letter Tolkien sent. ^{Letter from J.R.R. Tolkien to H [Humphrey]. Cotton Minchin • 16 April 1956 (#1528)[2]}