Mar
20
“
Edwin Muir, reviewing The Return of the King in the Observer on 27 November, wrote: ‘All the characters are boys masquerading as adult heroes …. and will never come to puberty. …. Hardly one of them knows anything about women.’
Tolkiens response: “Blast Edwin Muir and his delayed adolescence. He is old enough to know better. It might do him good to hear what women think of his ‘knowing about women’, especially as a test of being mentally adult. If he had an M.A. I should nominate him for the professorship of poetry – a sweet revenge.”
” 1955