In the following months The Lord of the Rings at last reached its conclusion. Tolkien recalled that he ‘actually wept’ when writing the account of the heroes’ welcome that is given to the hobbits on the Field of Cormallen. Long ago he had resolved to take the chief protagonists across the sea towards the West at the end of the book, and with the writing of the chapter that describes the setting sail from the Grey Havens the huge manuscript was nearly complete. Nearly, but not quite. ‘I like tying up loose ends,’ Tolkien once said, and he wished to make sure that there were no loose ends in his
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