Letter 144

Letter 144 is one among the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien included in the collection The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Summary
In this letter, Tolkien responded to Mrs. Naomi Mitchison, who had been proof-reading the yet-unpublished drafts of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, and written him with a number of questions. Tolkien expounded on several different topics pertaining to his works, notably concerning languages and on various questions on characters from The Lord of the Rings.

It is here that Tolkien made the now-famous comment that he "Wisely started with a map" before beginning on The Lord of the Rings, and also expressed his view that Tom Bombadil was meant to be an enigma.