Some 20 years later, in the wake of the publication of the final part of the trilogy, The Return of the King, WH Auden wrote that the cycle surpassed Milton's Paradise Lost.

BBC: Rings fellowship keeps on growing

The archive, never seen in public before, includes a letter from WH Auden to Day-Lewis criticising one of the latter's poems.

BBC: Cecil Day-Lewis

The auction also included several Fry's chocolate enamel signs, two railway signs, both from the Fry's era, and a sign from Bristol cigarette manufacturer WH Mills depicting the Bristol docks.

BBC: Military postcards sold at auction