always the last to know

Reading an interview of Christopher Tolkien which appeared in le Monde last month.

French readers, it seems, meet Bilbo and Frodo Baggins only if they read the original texts. If they read in translation, they get Frodon Sacquet, Bilbon Sacquet.  The French title of The Hobbit, though, is apparently Bilbo le Hobbit, so I'm confused.

(There is an English translation of the interview here.)

why a lion and emus?

I wrote to [his American publishers] expressing (with moderation) my dislike of the cover for The Hobbit. It was a short hasty note by hand, without a copy, but it was to this effect: I think the cover ugly; but I recognize that a main object of a paperback cover is to attract purchasers, and I suppose that you are better judges of what is attractive in USA than I am. I therefore will not enter into a debate about taste -- (meaning though I did not say so: horrible colours and foul lettering) -- but I must ask this about the vignette: what has it got to do with the story? Where is this place? Why a lion and emus? And what is the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs? I do not understand how anybody who had read the tale (I hope you are one) could think such a picture would please the author. ...

the rest here