The History of the Hobbit Read online

] indicates that the material within the brackets was replaced by what follows. By contrast, an arrow coming at the beginning of a bracketed passage [> thus] indicates that the material within the brackets replaced what came before. My reason for this flexibility in their application has been the goal of producing a coherent sentence where possible in each case. Occasionally I have supplied rubrics such as [added:] or [cancelled:] within the brackets where this improves the clarity of the sequence of changes or makes a sentence easier to read.

  Any transcription of Tolkien’s manuscripts will inevitably encounter difficulties with accurately reading his handwriting, which can vary from the most beautiful calligraphy worthy of an illuminated medieval manuscript to mere wavy lines rather like the print-out from an oscilloscope. Familiarity with his characteristic ligatures, a good grasp of Tolkienian phraseology, and comparison with the published versions of such passages have often enabled me to read them, but I confess that sometimes his scrawl has defeated me. Unfortunately, it is those very passages that were most hastily written down and which vary the most from the final text which are of course the most interesting to us, such as the First Outline (see pp. 229–30). In any case it is important to approach this or any other Tolkien manuscript with a fresh eye and remain wary of reading into the earliest draft the familiar wording of a published text. In the edition which follows, doubtful readings of nearly illegible words are presented within French brackets: , while wholly illegible words are either replaced by or ellipses (. . .), with possible readings often suggested in an associated Text Note. For the use of future scholars who might wish to examine the manuscript readings for themselves, I have deposited at Marquette a copy of my complete line-by-line and page-by-page transcript of all the manuscript material for The Hobbit in the Archives. I have also deposited a copy of Taum Santoski’s unfinished edition [circa 1989] for those who wish to compare his readings with my own. Finally, my website (www.sacnothscriptorium.com) hosts a list of errata for this book, while my blog (www.sacnoths.blogspot.com) features updates on all things Tolkienian, among other topics.

  Manuscript Citations

  This book is filled with references to specific manuscript and typescript pages. Of these, ‘Ms. p. XX’ means that Tolkien himself gave that manuscript page this number; similarly ‘Ts. p. XX’ indicates that Tolkien gave that page that number in the First Typescript. By contrast, the processors at Marquette broke up the two-hundred-odd pages of the manuscript (plus the two typescripts and miscellaneous outlines and rejected sheets) into manageable smaller chunks, placing each section that corresponded to a chapter in the published book into its own folder. Thus, a citation such as ‘Ms. page 13; Marq. 1/1/1:3’ indicates that this text comes from the page of handwritten manuscript that Tolkien numbered ‘13’ (in fact, the first page of the Second Phase), and that in the Marquette Tolkien Collection the page in question may be found in series 1 (The Hobbit), box 1 (manuscripts and typescripts), folder 1 (Chapter 1), page 3 (the first two sheets in this folder being unnumbered title pages). Similarly, the first page of text of the First Typescript (Ts. page 1; Marq. 1/1/51:2) appears in series 1, box 1, folder 51, page 2 (the first page in this folder being another unnumbered handwritten title page, this one including for the first time the subtitle or There and Back Again); the corresponding page in the Second Typescript is 1/1/32:2 (preceded by yet another title page). Since Tolkien wrote the bulk of the manuscript on two-sided sheets (e.g., Ms. page 14 is on the back of Ms. page 13), this means that no neat division between chapters is possible; sometimes the opening paragraphs of one chapter appear on the last sheet in the folder for the previous chapter, while the closing paragraphs of another chapter might appear on the first sheet in the folder holding the next chapter.

  In addition to the main body of manuscripts at Marquette purchased from Tolkien himself in the late 1950s, some additional material was generously donated to the collection by Christopher Tolkien in four installments: in 1987, 1988, 1990, and 1997. While most of this additional material was from The Lord of the Rings, it included the all-important stray sheet from the First Phase of The Hobbit bearing the earliest draft of the Lonely Mountain map, reproduced by Christopher in his Foreword to the fiftieth anniversary Hobbit and serving as my book’s Frontispiece. Pending an eventual reprocessing of the entire collection to incorporate this material into its proper sequence with the other manuscripts already at Marquette, these manuscripts and typescripts have their own designators: the page serving as my book’s Frontispiece being MSS-1 Tolkien, Mss 1/1/1.

  Finally, a small amount of manuscript material pertaining to The Hobbit but not part of the original draft, some of which did not even exist at the time Tolkien sold the bulk of his Hobbit papers to Marquette, remains in the hands of the Estate. These have been assigned page numbers by Christopher Tolkien for ease of reference when he generously made them available to Taum Santoski and myself, and to distinguish them from the two sets of Marquette material I refer to these as Ad.Ms.H.xx (= Additional Manuscript Hobbit p. xx). For example, the Fourth Phase handwritten draft revision of the Gollum chapter occupies Ad.Ms.H.34–52, while the Fifth Phase day-by-day itinerary of Bilbo’s trip from Hobbiton to Rivendell appears on Ad.Ms.H.21–24.

  Where I have had occasion to cite materials in other collections, such as the Bodleian Library’s Department of Western Manuscripts in Oxford, I have used the citation system used by those libraries at the time I consulted the materials in question.

  (iv)

  Abbreviations and Acknowledgments

  A great many works are cited, some repeatedly, over the course of this work. In order to save space and reduce redundancy, I use abbreviations in the place of some oft-cited titles. The most important of these is Douglas A. Anderson’s The Annotated Hobbit, which I have taken for my base text of the published book. The reasons for this are twofold: not only is Anderson’s the best text in print, incorporating all authorial changes, but his book and mine are complementary. He takes as a starting point the first printing of 1937 and scrupulously records every change and correction to the text by Tolkien from that point onward, while I look backwards from the moment of the first printing to tell the story of how the book was written.

  I also make frequent reference to such essential works as The Lord of the Rings, Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator, and of course the History of Middle-earth series.

  Finally, I draw throughout on the work of my friend Taum Santoski. This book began as a collaboration between us, and while in the event all the text and commentary are my own, I have relied upon Taum’s pioneering work at establishing the correct manuscript sequence. Taum’s particular fields of expertise were Tolkien’s invented languages and his artwork, and it is to be deeply regretted that he set down so little of this in writing; accordingly, I draw on my memory of our many conversations about the book at various points.

  DAA: Douglas A. Anderson, The Annotated Hobbit [1988; revised edition, 2002]. All references here are to the revised and expanded second edition of Anderson’s superlative work unless otherwise stated. Where I have needed to refer to the first [1937] or second [1951] or third [1966] editions of Tolkien’s original book, I have used the copies most readily available to me, these being the 3rd (1942), 13th (1961), and 31st (?1974) printings, respectively.

  ‘Foreword’: Christopher Tolkien, Foreword to the fiftieth anniversary edition of The Hobbit [1987].

  HME: The History of Middle-earth series (twelve volumes), ed. Christopher Tolkien. The twelve volumes of this series are individually cited as follows:

  BLT I: The Book of Lost Tales, Part I [1983]

  BLT II: The Book of Lost Tales, Part II [1984]

  HME III: The Lays of Beleriand [1985]

  HME IV: The Shaping of Middle-earth [1986]

  HME V: The Lost Road [1987]

  HME VI: The Return of the Shadow [1988]

  HME VII: The Treason of Isengard [1989]

  HME VIII: The War of
the Ring [1990]

  HME IX: Sauron Defeated [1992]

  HME X: Morgoth’s Ring [1993]

  HME XI: The War of the Jewels [1994]

  HME XII: The Peoples of Middle-earth [1996]

  Of these, volumes I & II contain a two-part presentation of ‘The Book of Lost Tales’, volumes VI, VII, VIII, & IXa form the subseries ‘The History of The Lord of the Rings’ (to which the first half of volume XII forms an unofficial appendage), and volumes X & XI comprise ‘The Later Silmarillion’. In addition, one should not neglect The History of Middle-earth Index [2002], a compilation of the indexes of all twelve volumes, which is extremely useful in tracking changes in names and the reappearance of specific names and characters from volume to volume. In this edition, I have drawn heavily on the first five volumes, these being the materials that either preceded (I–III) or are contemporary with the writing (IV) or publication (V) of The Hobbit. The most important individual works within these volumes for my study of The Hobbit, and the ones most frequently cited, have been the component tales of The Book of Lost Tales (particularly ‘Turambar and the Foalókë’ and ‘The Nauglafring’, both in BLT II), the long epic poem ‘The Lay of Leithian’ (HME III), the synoptic 1926 ‘Sketch of the Mythology’ (HME IV), and the 1930 Quenta (HME IV).

  LotR: The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. One volume edition, illustrated by Alan Lee [1991]. Among the many, many editions of The Lord of the Rings I have chosen this one as my base text, because it is widely available, because its one-volume format makes it easy to use, and because it predates certain post-authorial changes. However, any reference to a specific point in The Hobbit’s sequel should be easy to find by anyone even moderately familiar with the story. Where reference to the first edition text seemed desirable, I have used my copy of the first Allen & Unwin edition, which consists of a first printing of volume I [1954] and a second printing of volumes II [1955] and III [1955].

  Letters: The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien [1981; revised edition with expanded index, 2000].

  A&U: Allen & Unwin correspondence with JRRT, October 1936 through December 1937. Although not quite complete, this file of letters between Tolkien and various members of the firm of George Allen & Unwin – primarily Stanley Unwin, Susan Dagnall, and Charles Furth – along with a few internal memos provides a wealth of information about the publication of the book, as well as a few details about its presubmission history. I am grateful to Mary Butler, formerly of HarperCollins, for making this file available to me in the early stages of this project.

  Hammond Scull: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator by Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull [1995]. Individual paintings and drawings within this book are cited by the number Hammond & Scull assign them. Thus H-S#134 refers to figure 134 in their book, ‘Untitled (Smaug Flies around the Lonely Mountain)’ reproduced on page 142 of Artist & Illustrator.

  Hammond: J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond with Douglas A. Anderson [1993]. This is the definitive record of publishing information about each of Tolkien’s works, including misprints and variations between editions, and a brief but detailed account of each book’s genesis.

  Carpenter: Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter [1977]. The authorized biography; inaccurate in some details but after thirty years still unsurpassed as an overview of Tolkien’s life.

  OED: The Oxford English Dictionary. Specific citations come from the two-volume set more properly known as The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary [1971].

  OFS: ‘On Fairy-Stories’ by J. R. R. Tolkien, in Tree and Leaf [1964; expanded edition 1988]. An earlier version of this essay had appeared in the memorial festschrift Essays Presented to Charles Williams [1947], but unless stated otherwise all my citations come from the slightly revised 1964 form of this seminal work.

  FGH: Farmer Giles of Ham by J. R. R. Tolkien [1949; expanded edition 1999].

  FCL: The Father Christmas Letters by J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Baillie Tolkien [1976]. Most citations have been taken from the expanded edition (as Letters from Father Christmas [1999]).

  ATB: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil by J. R. R. Tolkien [1962]. Individual poems are cited by number – e.g., the fourteenth poem, ‘The Hoard’, is referred to as ATB poem #14.

  Beowulf Essay: ‘Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics’ [1936]. I have used the 1978 facsimile reproduction (by the Arden Library) of the original 1936 publication but the essay is also readily available in The Monsters & the Critics and Other Essays [1983; trade paperback 1997].

  Silm: The Silmarillion, ed. Christopher Tolkien [1977; revised edition 1999].

  UT: Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, ed. Christopher Tolkien [1979].

  Acknowledgments

  This project has been in the works for many years, and a great many people have helped, both those I consulted on specific points and those who offered more general support and encouragement.

  In addition to those acknowledged in my notes, I would like to thank the following for their contributions.

  • to Christopher Tolkien, for allowing me to undertake this project, for his patience with many questions over the course of it, and for his exceptional example through his many editions of his father’s work, particularly the History of Middle-earth series.

  • to my friend the late Taum Santoski, for entrusting me to take over this project and see it through to fruition.

  • to the late Rayner Unwin, for his encouragement and good advice in the early stages of this project.

  • to Charles Elston, who as archivist of the Marquette Tolkien collection made the materials under his protection available to all Tolkien scholars. Also to those at the Marquette Archives, particularly Terry Margherita, Tracy Muench, and Phil Runkel, who patiently sat for many hours while I transcribed manuscripts or checked and re-checked transcriptions, sometimes with a magnifying glass or light table. And also to Matt Blessing, the current archivist, for his patience with many follow-up questions in the project’s final stages.

  • to the late Terry Tuttle, who despite his own worsening health gave me free access to Taum Santoski’s papers, without which my work as Taum’s literary executor would have been much more difficult.

  • to all the participants in the Tolkien Symposiums over the last sixteen years, including Verlyn Flieger, Richard West, Wayne Hammond, Christina Scull, Marjorie Burns, Paul Thomas, Doug Anderson, the late Richard Blackwelder, Matt Fisher, Carolyn Kiel, Taum Santoski, Chris Mitchell, Gary Hunnewell, Vaughn Howland, Janice Coulter, David Bratman, Arden Smith, Carl Hostetter, and others.

  • to Jessica Yates, whose Seeing-Stone project first put me in touch with Tolkien scholars in other parts of the world.

  • to Richard West, Gwendolyn Kestrel, and especially Jim Pietrusz for their generosity in loaning me material or aid in helping me locate obscure works inaccessible to an independent scholar without access to Interlibrary Loan.

  • to Judith Priestman and others of the Bodleian’s Department of Western Manuscripts for their help during my four research trips to the Bodleian in 1981, 1985, 1992, and especially 1987.

  • to the Marion E. Wade collection at Wheaton College, in gratitude for their having awarded me a Clyde S. Kilby Research Grant in 1997 to help fund the ongoing research for this project, and to Lyle Dorsett, Marjorie Mead, Chris Mitchell, and others at the Wade Center for their courtesy during my many visits to the Wade researching this and other projects over the years.

  • to the Tolkien Society, for featuring me as a guest speaker at their Hobbit Workshop in May 1987; to Nancy Martsch and Beyond Bree for asking me to talk about this project as Guest of Honor at BreeMoot 3 in Minneapolis in 1997; and to the Mythopoeic Society, at whose 1993 and 1997 conferences I presented earlier versions of two chapters.

  • to Doug Anderson, for his generosity in sharing his knowledge about Tolkien chronology and of all things Hobbit.

  • to David
Salo, for having patiently answered many questions about Tolkien’s invented languages and Old English studies.

  • to Wayne Hammond & Christina Scull, for helping with many points regarding Tolkien’s publication history.

  • to Steve Brown, Wolf & Shelly Baur, Mark Sehestedt, and Jeff Grubb, for continually encouraging me to ‘get it done’; and to the Burrahobbits and Mithlonders, participants in two Tolkien-centric fantasy book discussion groups, who have heard much of this material piecemeal over the years.

  • to Kate Latham, Chris Smith, David Brawn, and Mary Butler, for their patience.

  • to Doug Anderson, Paul Thomas, and Richard West, for reading through the complete book and offering advice and corrections, and to Charles Noad for meticulously proofing the whole.

  • to my mother, for her faith and support.

  • to my wife, Janice Coulter, whose help and patience made it possible for me to complete this project despite many interruptions over a long period. In addition to helping me with the initial transcription and the proofing thereof, she has served as my sounding board, sometimes pointing out connections that had eluded me and offering insights that enabled me to work my way through some of the tangles that confronted me.