He was also infuriated by his first sight of the proofs, for he found that the printers had changed several of his spellings, altering dwarves to dwarfs, elvish to elfish, further to farther, and (‘worst of all’ said Tolkien) elvin to elfin. The printers were reproved; they said in self-defence that they had merely followed the dictionary spellings. (Similar ‘corrections’ to Tolkien’s spellings were made in 1961 when Puffin Books issued The Hobbit as a paperback, and this time to Tolkien’s distress the mistake was not discovered until the book had reached the shops.)
