The History of Middle-earth Series – Volumes I-VII
Since 1984 Christopher Tolkien has been presenting his father’s unpublished writings: his editing is both very careful and extremely detailed. These books are admittedly not for everyone, but being as they are rather a mixed bag, neither should they be dismissed without consideration. Brief descriptions have therefore been provided to aid individual decisions. It must be said up front that, rumors to the contary notwithstanding, these are not new stories (though they arguably approach being new stories in several cases).
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The Book of Lost Tales is the earliest version of the Silm — the storyline is much the same but the style is very different indeed (extremely archaic). Compared to the Silm (which is to some extent a compression of BoLT) these tales read more like stories and less like annals. A significant minority appear to prefer these versions to the published Silm. [BoLT was begun in 1916-17 while Tolkien was in hospital after serving in the Battle of the Somme.] -Buy at Amazon.com
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The Lays of Beleriand consists of two long poems, each one an expansion of a Lost Tale. “The Lay of the Children of Hurin” is 2300 lines of alliterative verse (unfinished). The Lay of Leithian” (the Beren and Luthian story) is in rhymed couplets and runs to some 4000 lines. Included is a revision of the Lay made around 1950 (i.e. post-LotR). For those who have a taste for such things the poems are wonderful, with the result that this is perhaps the most popular of the HoMe volumes. An added bonus is a commentary on the Lay written by C.S. Lewis in 1929. Lewis pretended that the Lay was an ancient manuscript and made numerous references to divergent texts and the opinions of ponderous nineteenth century scholars with absurd names. He nevertheless included much thoughtful criticism, which Tolkien took seriously. -Buy at Amazon.com
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The Shaping of Middle-earth returns to the development of the prose Silm, presented chronologically. Contained herein are 1) Tolkien’s plot summary of BoLT (labelled “the earliest Silm” by CJRT); 2) the re-expansion of the summary in both narrative (the Quenta Noldorinwa) and annalistic (the Earliest Annals of Valinor and of Beleriand) forms; and 3) The Ambarkanta (or “Of the Fashion of the World“): Tolkien’s musings on the physical construction of Middle-earth, accompanied by diagrams. -Buy at Amazon.com
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The Lost Road contains the rest of Tolkien’s M-e work up to 1937 (when LotR was begun), a somewhat diverse set of writings presented in three major sections. — The Lost Road is an unfinished time-travel story, conceived in the same impulse as were C.S. Lewis’ space-travel stories. A re-telling of the Atlantis story, it involved a father and son who were reincarnated during various time-periods significant in Germanic legend (Anglo-Saxon, Lombardic, etc.). In their most ancient incarnation their names were Amandil and Elendil and they lived on Atlantis itself, called “Númenor” in this story and already linked to the world of the Silm. Tolkien’s intention was to explicitly link M-e with many different Germanic legends, and these manuscripts are therefore significant in the context of Tolkien’s wider literary interests. Eventually, both Númenor and Elendil became important elements in the history of the Second Age of M-e. — The Silmarillion continued. Included are the next versions of the three parallel presentations: the Quenta Silmarillion, and the Later Annals of Valinor and of Beleriand. Also the first version of the Ainulindale (the Creation myth) and the Lhammas (The Account of Tongues), the latter accompanied by complicated charts depicting the evolution of a large number of related Elven languages. — The Etymologies. This was Tolkien’s working dictionary of Elvish words and roots. Although he of course never stopped developing the languages, this remains a useful reference today: he was still working on it during the early stages of writing LotR, as is shown by the notes on some of the Shire names which accompany various entries. -Buy at Amazon.com
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These are the rough drafts of LotR, very carefully analysed and annotated. They are most likely only for those who are interested both in Tolkien’s work and in the craft of writing. Vol VI is perhaps the most interesting, since the early drafts are those which differ most from the final form. However, certain aspects of the drafts of Book VI of LotR (i.e. the second half of RK), which comprise the first third of Vol IX, are also surprisingly different from the final version (e.g. Frodo’s actions during the Scouring of the Shire).
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Two thirds of Vol IX consist of the Notion Club Papers, a muchaltered re-telling of The Lost Road. The Notion Club was said to have been loosely based on the Inklings, although there was no attempt to depict Inkling personalities. Tolkien took a long sabbatical from writing LotR during 1945-46 to work on this story; a necessary part of this work was the development of Adunaic, the language of Númenor.
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The current (Fall, 1993) plan is for volumes X and XI to deal with the later development of the Silmarillion, X with the Valinorean half and XI with the Beleriandic half. The series is to continue at least through volume XII, which will contain miscellaneous pieces, such as “The New Shadow”, Tolkien’s quickly-abandoned sequel to LotR.