The Adventures of Tom Bombadil actual translation from the "Red Book of Westmarch", and contains some background information on the world of Middle-earth that is not found elsewhere: e.g. the name of the tower at Dol Amroth and the names of the Seven Rivers of Gondor. There is also some fictional background information of those poems, linking them to Hobbit folklore and literature and to their actual writers (some of them are ascribed to Samwise Gamgee). The book uses the letter "K" instead of "C" for the /k/ sound in Sindarin (one of the languages invented by Tolkien), a spelling variant Tolkien used many times
Sampson Gamgee Sampson Gamgee Dr Joseph Sampson Gamgee, MRCS, FRSE (17 April 1828, Livorno, Italy – 18 September 1886) was a surgeon at the Queen's Hospital (later the General Hospital) in Birmingham, England. He pioneered aseptic surgery (having once shared lodgings with Joseph Lister), and, in 1880 invented Gamgee Tissue, an absorbent cotton wool and gauze surgical dressing. He was the son of Joseph Gamgee (1801–1895), a veterinary surgeon in Leghorn, Italy, and his wife, Mary Ann West (1799-1873). He was the sibling of Dr John Gamgee, inventor and Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dick Veterinary College, Edinburgh and Dr Arthur