Posted by Adam Quinan on January 30, 2008 at 15:08:42 from 99.226.247.88 user Adam.
I recently finished a two volume study of how Tolkien wrote The Hobbit. The History of The Hobbit by John D. Rateliff. It reproduced his original manuscripts and showed how the story and plot developed from some original alternative versions into the book we now know.
For example Gandalf was originally the name of the chief dwarf and the wizard was called Bladorthin.
In Appendix IV, the author quotes the correspondence, recorded in Brogan's compilation of his correspondence Signalling from Mars between Arthur Ransome and Tolkien where Ransome comments on the use of the word "man" to describe Bilbo and a couple of other places where Ransome felt that word usage took away from the "suspension of disbelief".
In the notes that follow, Rateliff mentions a posting by Lyn Mellone to TarBoard and proceeds to give a URL for that post.
http://cres1.lancs.ac.uk/%7eesarie/tarboard/messages/23986.htm
Of course that URL comes up with the "TarBoard Missing or Nonexistent Post" page.
The message can be found in Archive 43a in the TarBoard electronic shoebox.
I am wondering if Ian could retrieve the message from the archive and give it a permanent place where inquisitive readers of The History of The Hobbit could actually find it?