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Christopher Tolkien: Hobbits
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[W]hen Tolkien died in 1973, he left his son Christopher in quite the predicament. Decades of writng, much if it unfinished, with a staggering palimpsest of manuscripts from which to draw from would be daunting to anyone. As literary executor, he had to come up with a publishable version of the work (as clearly that was his father's wishes, and Christopher was the man for the job, being most acquainted with the work). So, in four years, with the assistance of Guy Gavriel Kay, he cobbled together a self-contained narrative, largely compatible with the Hobbit cycle. Due to Tolkien's tendency to not finish drafts, some of the narrative in the last portion of the work had not been touched by Tolkien in literally decades (The Fall of Gondolin never got a complete version other than the 1916 Lost Tales story). Thingol and Melian presented thorny problems, especially the Girdle of Melian (her magical protection around Doriath).
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In The History of LotR, Tolkien is constantly dealing with a protean, ever-expanding universe. Middle-earth seemed to be shaping itself as Tolkien wrote of it, and this caused him problems of chronology and geography. For example, a journey that takes the Dwarves one hour to complete in The Hobbit takes the ranger Trotter/Strider/Aragorn and the hobbits six days because the terrain has changed so much. Another example is Sauron’s kingdom. Tolkien began writing with the intention of having the quest end at Sauron’s (a.k.a., the Neuromancer’s) headquarters in Mirkwood, a mere hop, skip and a jump from Rivendell. When a character off-handedly mentioned that the White Council had successfully driven Sauron out of Mirkwood and back to Mordor, his ancient fortress in the South East, Tolkien had to invent a geography and a backstory for Mordor and the lands that separated it from Rivendell.
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In addition to his mythopoetic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other stories included Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham and Leaf by Niggle. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium. Leaf by Niggle appears to be an autobiographical allegory, in which a "very small man", Niggle, works on a painting of a tree, but is so caught up with painstakingly painting individual leaves or elaborating the background, or so distracted by the demands of his neighbour, that he never manages to complete it.
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World rights to ``The Children of Húrin," bits and pieces of which have appeared in other books by the Oxford medievalist, were acquired from the Tolkien estate by HarperCollins UK, part of the Rupert Murdoch empire. Last month Houghton Mifflin announced it has acquired US rights, and will publish in April, simultaneous with international editions. Houghton is the US publisher of all of Tolkien's previous works, beginning with ``The Hobbit" in 1938. If Christopher Tolkien feels any doubts about the new project, he isn't saying so publicly. David Brawn, publishing director of HarperCollins UK, said Tolkien hasn't given interviews in years.
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The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, Allen & Unwin 1937, Houghton Mifflin 1938; many editions are currently available including paperbacks. Apart from a few names, like Elrond, there is no linguistic material here. This book ... uses Anglo-Saxon runes which can be studied elsewhere. Abbreviated: Hobbit
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A few of the pictures were pen-and-ink drawings that Tolkien later painted himself (such as “The Hill: Hobbiton Across the Water”), while most of the colored pictures were originally pen-and-ink drawings later colored by H.E. Riddett for the Tolkien Calenders in which they originally appeared.
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