J O N K E R S R A R E B O O K S
97. The Tolkien - Donald Swann Archive TOLKIEN, J.R.R.
1965-1973. An extraordinary archive of manuscripts and letters relating to the songs and poems Tolkien wrote for The Lord of the Rings and the collaboration with Donald Swann which led to the publication of The Road Goes Ever On, containing Tolkien’s original manuscript for the commentary to The Road Goes Ever On and two calligraph- ic manuscripts in Tengwar of poems from The Lord of the Rings, used as the dustwrap- per design. [45531] £550,000 Donald Swann, composer, musician and entertainer, most famous for being one half of the comic musical duo, Flanders and Swann was also an avid reader of The Lord of the Rings . He explains how this caused his association with Tolkien in his foreword to The Road Goes Ever On , “After my wife had communicated to me her passion for the three volumes of The Lord of the Rings , we found we were reading them more or less every spring... My wife suggested that I copy out some lyrics from the three books and set them to music en route [to Jordan, returning from a tour of Australia]. I had been performing for four months and I had an appetite for composing. That is how the first six of these songs came to be written on a beautiful Steinway grand piano in Ramallah outside Jerusalem... On my return to England the firm of George Allen and Unwin was good enough to give me permission to use the lyrics, and also to put me in touch with Professor Tolkien.”
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