Are There Many Different Middle-earths in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Books?

Q: Are There Many Different Middle-earths in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Books?

ANSWER: The is more than one Middle-earth in J.R.R. Tolkien’s books, but only in the sense that each book — when originally published — described a Middle-earth that did not really include the information published in the books which followed it. Of course, if an author were to set out to write a series of books and gradually added new information with each book, most readers would be satisfied to say that all of the books were set in the same world.

However, the story of Tolkien’s Middle-earth is more complicated than that. For example, Middle-earth does not exist in The Book of Lost Tales, the first collection of mythical stories Tolkien set about writing. The Book of Lost Tales was in fact Tolkien’s desired “mythology for England” — that is, it was composed in a literary style he felt might be characteristic of a collection of mythical stories handed down from the Anglo-Saxons to their descendants. But the landscapes used in The Book of Lost Tales are — for at least some stories — specifically set in certain areas of England.

The first edition of The Hobbit introduced Tolkien’s readers to the world that would later be called Middle-earth, but in 1937 The Hobbit was published as a self-contained story which only hinted there might be other stories sharing its world. The name “middle-earth” is not found in the text of The Hobbit, and in fact it had only recently appeared in Tolkien’s private maps and writings.

The first edition of The Lord of the Rings began as a sequel to The Hobbit, set in the non-descript “fairy-tale” world of The Hobbit but soon began drawing upon elements in Tolkien’s Beleriand and Numenor legends. As he blended these stories into the narrative of The Lord of the Rings Tolkien gradually built up the maps that were eventually published with The Lord of the Rings.

By the time The Fellowship of the Ring was published in July 1954 a second edition of The Hobbit had appeared which incorporated illustrative changes Tolkien had sent to his publisher in 1947. Tolkien received the galley proofs for this Hobbit revision in 1950 as he was writing the appendices for The Lord of the Rings.

The literary Middle-earth with which Tolkien is associated thus only really appeared in print in the 1950s, but it was not a wholly complete or satisfying Middle-earth. Tolkien wanted to publish a full Legendarium of stories covering the history of Middle-earth from beginning to early Fourth Age. But by 1956 he had not yet written a Silmarillion he felt would be compatible with The Lord of the Rings and the second edition of The Hobbit.

By the end of the 1930s J.R.R. Tolkien had written several versions of the “Quenta Silmarillion” and a few other texts — these were the Beleriandic stories, stories telling the history of the Elves of Beleriand and their allies among Dwarves and Men up to the War of Wrath, when Melkor/Morgoth was overthrown. Some readers have incorrectly said that Tolkien intended to use these versions to compile the “Silmarillion” texts he wanted to publish as a companion volume to The Lord of the Rings. However, Christopher Tolkien has argued that his father intended to write the whole Silmarillion that would be compatible with The Lord of the Rings from start to finish.

In preparation of this task J.R.R. Tolkien had rewritten a few short texts such as “Ainulindale” and “Akallabeth”. He made notes on copies of the 1930s-era Silmarillion narratives to use for later composition. It is these annotated copies that some readers have mistaken as an attempt to update or rewrite The Silmarillion in the 1950s. In fact, the only story Tolkien actually composed for The Silmarillion body of constituent texts after he finished the first edition of The Lord of the Rings was “Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin”.

It was always Tolkien’s intention to write “constituent texts”, sources from which he would compile a concise narrative that he called “Quenta Silmarillion”. Some of these texts, such as “Annals of Aman” and “Grey Annals” retold the same histories from different points of view. Tolkien extended his work on early versions of these texts into the 1950s but never completed them.

In the early 1960s Tolkien expanded the world of Middle-earth slightly by publishing The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, which integrated some older poems Tolkien had written independently of Middle-earth; he included a few explanatory notes in this book. He had also begun working on a sequel to The Lord of the Rings (The New Shadow) but abandoned that quickly; and he had begun an attempt to rewrite The Hobbit to be more thematically compatible with The Lord of the Rings.

But while Tolkien never finished either project he did write numerous essays and short narratives in the 1960s, mostly dealing with matters mentioned in The Lord of the Rings, such as the history of the Rohirrim, Isildur, and the Istari. This work was derailed in 1965 when Tolkien was forced to make hasty revisions to both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to protect his copyright.

The 1965 editions of the books forced Tolkien to change some of the backstory for Middle-earth. This 1965 Middle-earth is therefore not compatible with the 1950-55 Middle-earth. For example, the names of Finrod’s family were transformed, and Celeborn ceased to be one of the East-elves of Middle-earth and instead became a Sindarin Elf from Beleriand.

Tolkien expanded this revised Middle-earth in 1967 by collaborating with Donald Swann on The Road Goes Ever On, for which Tolkien wrote additional background notes dealing with some of the language and traditions of the Elves. It could be argued that these notes may be compatible with both versions of Middle-earth then in print.

After 1967 J.R.R. Tolkien entered into a final phase of reconstruction for Middle-earth. He intended to do away with the old “flat world” mythology that had been so fundamental to his myth-making for many decades. He also intended to revise the story of Celeborn and Galadriel, such that Celeborn would become an Elf of Aman rather than an Elf of Beleriand.

Although Christopher Tolkien wrote about these intended changes in Morgoth’s Ring, it appears that his father never got beyond the stage of making a few conceptual strokes at laying out the revised history. This final version of Middle-earth is thus the most incomplete and the least well-understood.

It is impossible to establish consistent support between all these different variations of Middle-earth; hence, we must accept that there were indeed several Middle-earth’s in Tolkien’s fiction. This was not by intention but rather simply due to the dissatisfaction J.R.R. Tolkien felt with his own work. He was a “niggler”, as he put it — constantly fixing things, perfecting details, while the greater picture slowly fell into disarray.

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