The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien himself. In letters 29 and 30, it appears that a German translation of "The Hobbit" was being negotiated in 1938. The German firm enquired whether Tolkien was of "Arisch" (Aryan) origin. Tolkien was infuriated by this, and wrote two drafts of possible replies for his publisher to choose. The first one is not present – in it Tolkien is assumed to have refused to give any declaration whatsoever of his racial origins. The second, surviving, draft included: A former signals officer at the Battle of the Somme, Tolkien frequently expressed his great dislike for war, whatever the cause. This is
J. R. R. Tolkien published in three volumes. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series "The History of Middle-earth", edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of "The Fall of Númenor", which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis. Tolkien had appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as "The Silmarillion" in 1977. It received the Locus