Posted by Sho Seno on December 14, 1996 at 00:38:45:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Who is Minas Tirith? What's AR's connection? posted by Dave Thewlis on November 22, 1996 at 12:53:21:
It seems that whether AR met Tolkien or not is yet to be known, AR actually wrote to Tolkien, as described in Hugh Brogan's "The Life of Arthur Ransome", in the second footnote to the first chapter: "After The Hobbit appered AR wrote to the author, describing himself as 'a humble hobbit fancier', and questioning the use of the word 'man' to described a hobbit ..."Tolkien's comment to AR's criticism can be found in the 20th letter in "The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien":"... But, though I agree that his insult was rather silly and not quite up to form, I do not think anything can be done about it now. Unless oaves would do?"But eventually Tolkien changed wording in the second edition of The Hobbit, e.g, 'Excitable little man' to 'Excitable little fellow' in a description of Bilbo by Gandalf in the first chapter. I think the above is an evidence that AR paid great attentions to consistency of the stories.