Talk:The History of Middle-earth/Archive 1

Untitled discussion
The nature of the THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH is very complex. Christopher Tolkien shifted directions several times during the process of writing the collection, the extent of which he did not foresee at the outset. However, he stipulated several stylistic conventions and facts from the outset.

One of the conventions Christopher followed throughout the twelve volumes was to distinguish between the published SILMARILLION and the various texts. A footnote attached to the first use of the italicized name THE SILMARILLION in the Foreword to THE BOOK OF LOST TAKES, PART ONE reads --


 * When the name is printed in italics, I refer to the work as published; when in inverted commas, to the work in a more general way, in any or all of its forms.

Years later, Christopher elaborated on this point in the foreword to THE WAR OF THE JEWELS --


 * ...I use the term 'Silmarillion', of course, in a very wide sense: this though potentially confusing is imposed by the extremely complex relationship of the different 'works' -- especially but not only that of the QUENTA SILMARILLION and the ANNALS; and my father himself employed the name in this way....

I point this out because, through the years, people have been far less careful than Christopher in distinguishing between the published book and the body of separate works which collectively he and his father identified as 'The Silmarillion'. More importantly, though Christopher himself distinguished between THE BOOK OF LOST TALES and 'The Silmarillion', many readers have not. But the foreword to THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, PART ONE, establishes the distinction as a fact of record in the first paragraph --


 * THE BOOK OF LOST TALES, written between sixty and seventy years ago, was the first substantial work of imaginitive literature by J.R.R. Tolkien, and the first emergence in narrative of the Valar, of the Children of Iluvatar, Elves and Men, of the Dwarves and the Orcs, and of the lands in which their history is set, Valinor beyond the western ocean, and Middle-earth, the 'Great Lands' between the seas of east and west. Some fifty-seven years after my father ceased to work on the LOST TALES, THE SILMARILLION, profoundly transformed from its distant forerunner, was published; and sixty years have passed since then.

Wikipedia articles should be careful not to repeat the errors of fact which have become accepted as substantially true through the weight of repeated erroneous usage. Michael Martinez, 15:08, 29 May 2005

XIV Volume?
Has been announced to be pubblished in 2007. Does The Children of Húrin should be referenced or included?--Elistir 09:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The Children of Húrin doesn't sound as if it is being called a new HoME volume. So, I think not. Carcharoth 20:17, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah. It seems that will be published as UT has been.--Elistir 12:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:51, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Inside cover
On the Book of Lost Tales page, it states "There is an inscription in the Fëanorian characters (Tengwar, an alphabet Tolkien has devised for High-Elves) in the first pages of every History of Middle-earth volume..." however, the editions I own (vol 1-6, published by Del Rey) have no such page. Could this possibly be publisher-specific? (This version doesn't even have the Tolkien Estate mark) ataricom (talk) 05:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Further unpublished materials
It says in the current version of the article that "numerous unpublished texts are still known to exist", with a reference to the Le Monde interview with Christopher Tolkien. But this claim is not actually made in that interview, only that C. Tolkien had to work mostly from photocopies rather than originals. Is there any confirmation of this? Otherwise it should probably be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by McCaine (talk • contribs) 22:38, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Virtually all [significant examples] of the "numerous unpublished texts are still known to exist" have since been published. Whether the Le Monde article is accurate or not isn't relevant any more, in my opinion. There are still catalogued notes in a couple of university collections, but many of them have been cited or included in several books published over the past 10-15 years. I don't know if there is a complete bibliography. Michael Martinez (talk) 20:19, 19 February 2024 (UTC)