Christopher Tolkien's The History of Middle-earth

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

I have a chance to pick up this series for a good price. It looks like a mammoth read, though, so I'm looking for thoughts on this series. Is it any good? Is it a slog to get through or a fascinating read? Should I get this?

[Jurassic Shark 12,008]

Just wait for the Amazon series!

[Incanus 5,713]

The series is a fascinating read but it is more on the scholarly side, chronicling the evolution of the whole legendarium from the original Book of Lost Tales to the literary history of the Lord of the Rings and beyond. You can of course read most of the stories without ever looking at the notes, commentary or footnotes but they might come off as fragmentary in some points and you might miss some of the fascinating little details the notes clarify and bring to light. There is a great deal of repetition as well as this series attempts to illuminate the lengthy creation and gestation process of these various stories and how they evolve and you will encounter slowly refined histories of his stories from book to book, version to version in the 12 volumes of the series.

 

In addition Christopher Tolkien tries to offer textual analysis and textual history concerning the various editions of these stories, what manuscript was written when and which might be the first, which intervening and what the last or latest draft of a particular piece of writing. Plus he offers lengthy explanatory essays in all the volumes of this work. And not nearly all of these papers and stories Tolkien left behind are in any true published form but fragments and stories that are started and then left unfinished. E.g. volume 3 The Lays of Beleriand offers two lengthy poems on The Lay of the Children of Húrin and The Lay of Leithian, both of which were never finished as well as some other unfinished poem fragments. If you have read the Unfinished Tales then you have a pretty good idea of how this book series approaches the subject matter.

 

So it is not a straight " oh wow here is a new 12 part epic fantasy novel from Tolkien's secret hoard of unpublished tales" but a well researched and scholarly work presenting us all these fascinating stories but very heavily leaning to showing us the development of Tolkien's various ideas, stories and thinking on his secondary world he did throughout his life and offer glimpses to the creation processes of this literary genius. That is certainly not to say there isn't purely literary pleasure to be reaped from these volumes but as I said these works seem more of a scholarly analysis of Tolkien's large body of writings while at the same time making them available to his ardent readers.

 

But if you are able to get this at a decent price I would certainly recommend it if you have more than a passing interest in Tolkien's works.

[Bofur01 245]

I currently have The Book of Lost Tales, parts 1 & 2, and found this reddit thread which gives some help on which are likely to be of interest:

 

 

 

Maybe the most helpful is the top post:

 

"The Book of Lost Tales Part 1 - is a collection of Tolkien's early ideas - sort of a proto-proto Silmarillion. Interesting, but apart from the framing narrative and some stories that were never developed further, it's mostly a collection of drafts.

The Book of Lost Tales Part 2 - ditto, being the second half of the above.

The Lays of Beleriand - Children of Hurin and Beren & Luthien in verse form. Worth a read, but not 'essential'.

The Shaping of Middle-earth - Basically tracing how Lost Tales became the early Silmarilion. Beyond a few maps it's again a draft collection. Going by what you've said, I'd skip this one.

The Lost Road and Other Writings - An interesting collection of bits and pieces. Part II is more Silmarillion drafts, but Part I shows the beginings of Numenor.

The Return of the Shadow - Fellowship of the Ring drafts. Only of interest if you like the idea of tracing the development of Tolkien's ideas - skip if you only care about the finished form.

The Treason of Isengard - Fellowship and Two Towers drafts. Same deal as the above.

The War of the Ring - Towers and Return of the King drafts. Ditto.

Sauron Defeated - drafts to the end of the story, plus a bunch of other stuff. Well worth a look.

Morgoth's Ring - Silmarilion drafts followed by two really interesting sections. Get this, even if if nothing else.

The War of the Jewels - the second half is full of material that appears nowhere else. It's sort of 'part two' of the above. I'd get this if I were you.

The Peoples of Middle-earth - an absolute treasure trove. Well worth it."

[Faleel 5,326]

If you get them, be sure to get the Sauron defeated version over the cutdown End of the Third Age version.