The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.
The terms have been used by reviewers, publishers, scholars, authors and critics such as John Garth, [1] Tom Shippey, [2] Jane Chance [3] and others to describe the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien on Middle-earth as a whole. [4] Other writers look to the entire body of work of the author as a "Tolkien canon", rather than a subset defined by the fictional "Middle-earth" setting. [5]
The works on Middle-earth published by Tolkien during his lifetime include The Hobbit , The Lord of the Rings , The Adventures of Tom Bombadil , and The Road Goes Ever On . After Tolkien's death his son Christopher published The Silmarillion with many textual changes to knit several mostly unfinished manuscripts together as a coherent narrative. Further posthumous publications (with text more closely following Tolkien's original) include Unfinished Tales , The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien , Bilbo's Last Song , The Children of Húrin , Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin .
Christopher Tolkien also published the 12-volume History of Middle-earth , containing many texts, drafts, and notes by Tolkien (both early and late), together with Christopher's own extensive notes placing these in context.
Further works authorized by the Tolkien Estate include The History of The Hobbit in two volumes by John D. Rateliff and The Annotated Hobbit by Douglas A. Anderson, both with notes and early drafts by Tolkien. Linguistic material by Tolkien concerning Middle-earth has also been published with the permission of the Estate in two periodical publications. [6] The Qenya and Gnomish Lexicons, in full, appear in Parma Eldalamberon Numbers 11–16; other mostly self-contained fragments, notes, and poems appear in various issues of Vinyar Tengwar . All of this material together constitutes a collection which, much like real-world histories and mythologies, contains numerous points of obscurity, omission, or apparent contradiction.
Although Tolkien said that The Hobbit was conceived separately from his mythological stories, [7] early drafts show that it was set in that world, referring explicitly to characters and places which appeared in his Book of Lost Tales which would later become The Silmarillion. The Necromancer was originally Thû, the precursor of Sauron; Thorin's grandfather was imprisoned in the same dungeons that held Beren and Lúthien; the Elven king was Thingol and his land Menegroth. [8]
When he revised The Hobbit to bring the story of the finding of the Ring in line with The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien retained the original version as the tale Bilbo told to justify his acquisition of the Ring.
The Lord of the Rings picks up the story of The Hobbit some sixty years later, with some of the same locations and characters. Tolkien now explicitly linked the story to the Silmarillion tales, but placed it some six thousand years later in time. This reframing made some details in The Hobbit, such as the goblins' ready recognition of the ancient swords Orcrist and Glamdring, difficult to reconcile into a single history.
Other details from The Hobbit don't quite mesh with The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and his companions, for example, cover much the same territory in the Trollshaws as Bilbo and the Dwarves, but take much longer to reach Rivendell, and the geography is described differently. [9] Several adjustments to The Hobbit only increased the discrepancies; and in the 1960s, Tolkien began rewriting The Hobbit more in the style and tone of The Lord of the Rings, adjusting the journey and landmarks to fit the later story, but ultimately abandoned the effort.
According to Christopher Tolkien, despite J. R. R. Tolkien's desire to bring the older Silmarillion stories to a publishable state, much time was spent instead trying to bring consistency to the works already published. [10] The unpublished manuscripts were left in various states of completion. These older stories had existed and changed over many decades, partly in response to The Lord of the Rings; as he reworked the material, he made substantial changes, up to and including the abandonment of major themes and entire tales, and wholesale rewrites and revisions of otherwise seemingly complete narratives.
Towards the end of his life, the focus of Tolkien's writing shifted from story telling inspired by his philological pursuits [11] to more philosophical concerns, and Tolkien never finished a unified, systematic, and internally consistent narrative.
The Silmarillion was compiled by Christopher Tolkien (long involved in J. R. R. Tolkien's creative process) and published in 1977, four years after Tolkien’s death. It presents an abridged cycle of Tolkien's drafts of his Elvish legends, in the legendarium that he worked on throughout his life, drawing material from the earliest Book of Lost Tales to drafts written long after The Lord of the Rings. Most of the original texts have subsequently appeared in the History of Middle-earth. Christopher's goal was a version resembling what he thought at the time his father might have produced.
Christopher observed that absolute consistency among the Middle-earth tales could only be achieved by losing much that was good in them:
"a complete consistency (either within the compass of The Silmarillion itself or between The Silmarillion and other published writings of my father's) is not to be looked for, and could only be achieved, if at all, at heavy and needless cost." [12]
He went on to say:
"My father came to conceive The Silmarillion as a compilation... and it is to some extent a compendium in fact and not only in theory." [12]
Throughout his commentaries in Unfinished Tales and the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien points out differences between various versions of the original texts and the final editorial selections and occasional alterations in The Silmarillion. In the Introduction of Unfinished Tales he observes that such selection was necessary to publishing a unified narrative; [13] in some cases he later came to feel that he went too far, most particularly in creating a synthesis of original material and existing texts for the chapter on the ruin of Doriath in The Silmarillion, where his father's pre- and post-Lord of the Rings writings were apparently irreconcilable:
"I think now that this was a mistaken view, and that the undoubted difficulties could have been and should have been, surmounted without so far overstepping the bounds of editorial function." [14]
Editing for consistency can be seen by comparing the chapter "Of the Voyage of Eärendil" in The Silmarillion with its corresponding section in the History of Middle-earth Volume V (The Lost Road and Other Writings). The Quenta Silmarillion of the 1930s was Tolkien's final text for this section, and Christopher carried it forward into The Silmarillion nearly word for word with editorial modifications—for consistency with other works—primarily limited to nomenclature: Fionwë edited to Eönwë, Lindar to Vanyar, etc. For example:
From The Silmarillion: "In the front of that fire came Glaurung the golden, father of dragons, in his full might; and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Noldor had never before seen or imagined." — p. 151.
From The Lost Road: "In the front of that fire came Glómund the golden, the father of dragons, and in his train were Balrogs, and behind them came the black armies of the Orcs in multitudes such as the Gnomes had never before seen or imagined." — p. 280.
In the continuing development of the published history of Middle-earth, Christopher Tolkien quotes in The Children of Húrin his father's own words on his fictional universe:
"once upon a time... I had in mind to make a body of more or less connected legend... I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched." [15]
Christopher Tolkien offers this justification for exercising his editorial authority to produce The Children of Húrin as a separate book:
"...it has seemed to me that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the Children of Húrin as an independent work, between its own covers, with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all in continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions, if this could be done without distortion or invention, despite the unfinished state in which he left parts of it." [16]
Ethan Gilsdorf reviewing The Children of Húrin wrote of the editorial function:
"Of almost equal interest is Christopher Tolkien's task editing his father's abandoned projects. In his appendix, he explains his editorial process this way: "While I have had to introduce bridging passages here and there in the piecing together of different drafts, there is no element of extraneous 'invention' of any kind, however slight." He was criticized for having monkeyed with his father's text when putting "The Silmarillion" together. This pre-emptive strike must be meant to allay the fears of Tolkien's most persnickety readers." [17]
As a result of the manner of its creation, the secondary world of Middle-earth is complicated. Its creator developed various elements of his fiction over the course of decades, making substantial changes including the abandonment of major themes, facts and entire tales, and undertook wholesale rewrites and revisions of otherwise "complete" narratives. The author's opinions on the relationships of his texts to each other often changed. In his letters, Tolkien comments upon the intertextual relationships of his works:
"I am doubtful myself about the undertaking [of finishing The Silmarillion]. Part of the attraction of the L.R. [The Lord of the Rings] is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background: an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in a sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed." [18]
The quest by some readers for a consistent fictional canon within some subset of Tolkien's writings was noted by Verlyn Flieger. Since the degree of narrative consistency that might be expected from a series of novels is not always found in Tolkien's work, Flieger attributed the need on the part of some readers to find consistency within the stories to the sense of reality that Tolkien strove to instil in his work, although the search for a definitive fictional canon has been seen as ultimately irrelevant to appreciation of his tales. [19]
The desire for a Middle-earth canon arises from the need of some readers to form an internal consistency between the stories, a need related to their "willing suspension of disbelief". [20] [21] Tolkien, in his essay "On Fairy Stories", claimed that no individual fantasy story can be successful without maintaining an "inner consistency of reality". [22] An author, he says:
"... makes a Secondary World which your mind can enter. Inside it, what he relates is 'true': it accords with the laws of that world. ... The moment disbelief arises, the spell is broken; the magic, or rather art, has failed." [23]
W.H. Auden, former student of Tolkien, supports this notion in his review of one of Tolkien's books:
"Of any imaginary world the reader demands that it seem real, and the standard of realism demanded today is much stricter than in the time, say, of Malory." [24]
Christopher John Reuel Tolkien was an English and naturalised French academic editor. The son of the author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher edited 24 volumes of his father's posthumously published work, including The Silmarillion and the 12-volume series The History of Middle-Earth, a task that took 45 years. He also drew the original maps for his father's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings.
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional legendarium, Beleriand was a region in northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age. Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work The Silmarillion, which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Nordic literature, with a pervasive sense of doom over the character's actions. Beleriand also appears in the works The Book of Lost Tales, The Children of Húrin, and in the epic poems of The Lays of Beleriand.
The History of Middle-earth is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 by George Allen & Unwin in the UK and by Houghton Mifflin in the US, that collect and analyse much of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over time of Tolkien's conception of Middle-earth as a fictional place with its own peoples, languages, and history, from his earliest notions of "a mythology for England" through to the development of the stories that make up The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It is not a "history of Middle-earth" in the sense of being a chronicle of events in Middle-earth written from an in-universe perspective; it is instead an out-of-universe history of Tolkien's creative process. In 2000, the twelve volumes were republished in three limited edition omnibus volumes. Non-deluxe editions of the three volumes were published in 2002.
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth is a collection of stories and essays by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980. Many of the tales within are retold in The Silmarillion, albeit in modified forms; the work also contains a summary of the events of The Lord of the Rings told from a less personal perspective.
The War of the Jewels (1994) is the 11th volume of Christopher Tolkien's series The History of Middle-earth, analysing the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. It is the second of two volumes—Morgoth's Ring being the first—to explore the later 1951 Silmarillion drafts.
The Lost Road and Other Writings – Language and Legend before 'The Lord of the Rings' is the fifth volume, published in 1987, of The History of Middle-earth, a series of compilations of drafts and essays written by J. R. R. Tolkien in around 1936–1937. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher.
Húrin is a fictional character in the Middle-earth legendarium of J. R. R. Tolkien. He is introduced in The Silmarillion as a hero of Men during the First Age, said to be the greatest warrior of both the Edain and all Men in Middle-earth. His actions, however, bring catastrophe and ruin to his family and to the people of Beleriand.
Ælfwine the mariner is a fictional character found in various early versions of J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium. Tolkien envisaged Ælfwine as an Anglo-Saxon who visited and befriended the Elves and acted as the source of later mythology. Thus, in the frame story, Ælfwine is the stated author of the various translations in Old English that appear in the twelve-volume The History of Middle-earth edited by Christopher Tolkien.
J. R. R. Tolkien's The Fall of Gondolin is a 2018 book of fantasy fiction by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by his son Christopher. The story is one of what Tolkien called the three "Great Tales" from the First Age of Middle-earth; the other two are Beren and Lúthien and The Children of Húrin. All three stories are briefly summarised in the 1977 book The Silmarillion, and all three have now been published as stand-alone books. A version of the story also appears in The Book of Lost Tales. In the narrative, Gondolin was founded by King Turgon in the First Age. The city was carefully hidden, enduring for centuries before being betrayed and destroyed. Written in 1917, it is one of the first stories of Tolkien's legendarium.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the real-world history and notable fictional elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy universe. It covers materials created by Tolkien; the works on his unpublished manuscripts, by his son Christopher Tolkien; and films, games and other media created by other people.
J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium features dragons based on those of European legend, but going beyond them in having personalities of their own, such as the wily Smaug, who has features of both Fafnir and the Beowulf dragon.
Beren and Lúthien is a 2017 compilation of multiple versions of the epic fantasy Lúthien and Beren by J. R. R. Tolkien, one of Tolkien's earliest tales of Middle-earth. It is edited by Christopher Tolkien. It is the story of the love and adventures of the mortal Man Beren and the immortal Elf-maiden Lúthien. Tolkien wrote several versions of their story, the last in The Silmarillion, and the tale is also mentioned in The Lord of the Rings at the council of Elrond. The story takes place during the First Age of Middle-earth, about 6,500 years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
The Children of Húrin is an epic fantasy novel which forms the completion of a tale by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revising it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973. His son, Christopher Tolkien, edited the manuscripts to form a consistent narrative, and published it in 2007 as an independent work. The book is illustrated by Alan Lee. The story is one of three "Great Tales" set in the First Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth, the other two being Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin.
Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings, and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of The Silmarillion and documented in his 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth. The legendarium's origins reach back to 1914, when Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches, drawing maps, and inventing languages and names as a private project to create a mythology for England. The earliest story, "The Voyage of Earendel, the Evening Star", is from 1914; he revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life.
This is a list of all the published works of the English writer and philologist J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien's works were published before and after his death.
The Silmarillion is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by Guy Gavriel Kay, who became a fantasy author. It tells of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed Realm of Valinor, the ill-fated region of Beleriand, the island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—are set. After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher, Stanley Unwin, requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the writings that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien's Middle-earth family trees contribute to the impression of depth and realism in the stories set in his fantasy world by showing that each character is rooted in history with a rich network of relationships. J. R. R. Tolkien included multiple family trees in both The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion; they are variously for Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits, and Men.
Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. A professional philologist, J. R. R. Tolkien prepared a wide variety of materials to support his fiction, including illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "picturesque" maps, calligraphy, and sketches and paintings from life. Some of his artworks combined several of these elements.
J. R. R. Tolkien decided to increase the reader's feeling that the story in his 1954–55 book The Lord of the Rings was real, by framing the main text with an elaborate editorial apparatus that extends and comments upon it. This material, mainly in the book's appendices, effectively includes a fictional editorial figure much like himself who is interested in philology, and who says he is translating a manuscript which has somehow come into his hands, having somehow survived the thousands of years since the Third Age. He called the book a heroic romance, giving it a medieval feeling, and describing its time-frame as the remote past. Among the steps he took to make its setting, Middle-earth, believable were to develop its geography, history, peoples, genealogies, and unseen background in great detail, complete with editorial commentary in each case.