Talk:The History of Middle-earth

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)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The History of Middle-earth/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:57, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Kusma (talk · contribs) 10:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Will review this later today. —Kusma (talk) 10:21, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks as always. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:23, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Content and prose review

I will comment on anything I notice, but not all of my comments will be strictly related to the GA criteria, so not everything needs to be actioned. Feel free to push back if you think I am asking too much, and please tell me when I am wrong.

I have read the text linearly and am commenting on the linear order, so there are some things I complain about that you answer later in the text.

• Lead: perhaps you could also mention JRRT directly
  • Done.

• I like the final paragraph of the lead; I just will need to double check that "inadvertently" really is covered by sources.
  • Thanks. Readily sourced; [11] Nagy covers it.

• Structure and content: I am wondering whether we should have a little more background and context before we dive right into this. You say a little bit about CJRT later, but I think it is important to know that he has already edited the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales. The HoME series has significantly more of CJRT's commentary in it than his earlier edited volumes, which isn't really becoming clear from what we see here. It would also be useful to know that CJRT isn't only qualified as his father's son, but also as a skilful philologist in his own right.

• "The History of Middle-earth, written in stages throughout Tolkien's life, was published in 12 volumes" I am not sure I agree with the framing here: it sounds like JRRT wrote a single massive work throughout his life, which was then published with only little intervention by CJRT. This is underselling CJRT's efforts rather massively.
  • Ah yes, fixed.

• The table is reasonably sourced to Whittingham, with the exception of the LoTR content that she deliberately omits. The rest of this section is lacking citations. Some of that could be amended by just adding a section at the end with bibliographic details on the editions.
  • Added refs, though the text was already bibliographic so citing it feels a bit ... repetitive.

• There is nothing on the US editions (not even that they exist) and who publishes them.

• CJRT made many other decisions, not just the exclusion of the Hobbit. I think he deserves more of a spotlight here. I am wondering (and I am not at all certain that this is something you should do) whether it is worth citing his own commentary, like from Vol. 1 "This edition of the Lost Tales in two parts is to be, as I hope, the beginning of a series that will carry the history further through these later writings, in verse and prose; and in this hope I have applied to this present book an ‘overriding’ title intended to cover also those that may follow it, though I fear that The History of Middle-earth may turn out to have been over-ambitious. In any case this title does not imply a ‘History’ in the conventional sense: my intention is to give complete or largely complete texts, so that the books will be more like a series of editions. I do not set myself as a primary object the unravelling of many single and separate threads, but rather the making available of works that can and should be read as wholes." or from the final volume, "Since the ceaseless 'making' of his world extended from my father's youth into his old age, The History of Middle-earth is in some sense also a record of his life, a form of biography, if of a very unusual kind. He had travelled a long road." You are the expert here, and I understand if you want to avoid unnecessary duplication, but some of the discussion in Christopher_Tolkien#Editor_or_author could be quite helpful here.

• Reception: I assume you have focussed here on reception of the (more or less completed) series as a whole? That seems fine.
  • That's the goal.

• A life's work: As I have said in too many words already (sorry!), I think content about Christopher could come earlier.

• How much did Guy Gavriel Kay contribute to HoME?
  • Only until 1977.

• "he resigned from New College" we haven't been told what he was doing there.
  • Added a brief gloss.

• Editorial framing: here we are getting closer to the story of CJRT. I couldn't access all of Nagy's test, but isn't he talking more about the 1977 Silmarillion than about HoME?
  • His remarks apply a fortiori to HoME with its extensive editorial apparatus.

• A similar point (but apparently without the marvellous CJRT=Bilbo quote) is made by Ferré, so my question about the lead section from above is answered.
  • Noted.

• Overall I really enjoyed the Analysis/Framing sections. The early sections are a bit less convincing, but probably do not need more than an extra paragraph or two of background material / rearranging. —Kusma (talk) 12:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Source spotchecks

Numbering from Special:PermanentLink/1228825617.

• 1: looks ok for the claim. Wikipedia has generally stopped trusting random websites, but this one actually is probably as good as anything printed on the topic. Could also be used to source more bibliographical data later. Also should note that deluxe editions were published by HarperCollins, not by George Allen & Unwin.
• 2: as discussed above, does not cover the entire table (probably a good thing otherwise I'd complain about paraphrasing). Technically at least the life events should be cited to something.
• 4: reasonable summary. Looking at this review, JSTOR suggested this review of the whole series by Hammond and Scull, which contains a few interesting quotes ("some readers have suggested that the History of Middle-earth should never have been published")

More later! —Kusma (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

• 6: fine (fixing the Heracles/Hercules typo silently is fine). I couldn't find out much about the publication or the reviewer, but this is ok as an attributed opinion.
• 9: fine

No real concerns. —Kusma (talk) 14:31, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

General comments and GA criteria

Good Article review progress box Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• Well written, even if we can argue about the ordering.
• Sourcing is fine, but as of the last version I have seen the content about the History of the Hobbit still needs a reference.
• Main broadness question is how much background material on Christopher Tolkien and his work to include.
• Generally I am happy with the scope, where almost all of the plot content is delegated to the sub-articles and we just look at the big picture.
• Main image is ok; your diagrams are quite neat. Is there anything else interesting that could be added? (CJRT/JRRT probably would be repetitive with other articles; is there anything like a JRRT manuscript page??)
• Captions are fine.
• No concerns with other criteria.

A rather good article (and I hope my suggestions above will help make it better). —Kusma (talk) 14:43, 26 June 2024 (UTC)