One Thrain or Two: A detailed textual history

"No Spam" <nospam DeleteThis @xenite.org> wrote in message
news:a77f86c5.0407082011.5df6a0d5@posting.google.com...

> Younger than her elder brother. Ho, hum.

Ok, I found some time to look it up. Thorin's younger brother Frerin
appears in the genealogy in the appendix. I had forgotten that.

That helps your contention that Tolkien was describing Thorin as the elder
of Dis's brothers, but he could still have been saying simply that Thorin
was older than Dis and have invented Frerin later. Thus no 'mistake' in the
first version of the genealogy. It looks like Frerin was written into the
Battle of Azanulbizar afterwards and then added to the genealogy.

> In fact, this all came about AFTER Allen & Unwin had REJECTED
> THE LORD OF THE RINGS (see preamble to Letter 128), so he
> had no publisher for the sequel at the time anyway.

Yes. A&U had rejected LotR at the time of letter #130. That is irrelevant
to the fact that Tolkien was still trying to get it published... as
witnessed in letter #131.

"Conrad Dunkerson" <cbdunkerson RemoveThis @verizon.net> wrote in message news:<e7AHc.50778$MT5.50082@nwrdny01.gnilink.net>...
> "No Spam" <nospam RemoveThis @xenite.org> wrote in message
> news:a77f86c5.0407082011.5df6a0d5@posting.google.com...
>
> > Younger than her elder brother. Ho, hum.
>
> Ok, I found some time to look it up. Thorin's younger brother Frerin
> appears in the genealogy in the appendix. I had forgotten that.
>
> That helps your contention that Tolkien was describing Thorin as the elder
> of Dis's brothers, but he could still have been saying simply that Thorin
> was older than Dis and have invented Frerin later. Thus no 'mistake' in the
> first version of the genealogy. It looks like Frerin was written into the
> Battle of Azanulbizar afterwards and then added to the genealogy.

The genealogical table published on page 277 of THE PEOPLES OF
MIDDLE-EARTH probably didn't exist when JRRT wrote the entry for 2590
in the T4 "Tale of Years". This first version of the genealogy takes
into account some of the characters from THE HOBBIT but doesn't
include all of them. Christopher notes in his commentary on the first
draft of "Durin's Folk" that:

This text was followed by a second version, a well-written and
scarcely corrected manuscript with the title OF DURIN'S RACE,
very similar in appearance to text III of THE HOUSE OF EORL
(p. 272) and probably contemporary with it. So closely did
my father preserve the original text (as emended and expanded)
that I think it must have follwoed at once, or at any rate
after no long interval.

Further on he mentions the two copies of the genealogical table that
accompany the second version of the text, and they do not include
Frerin, either.

Regarding "The House of Eorl", Christopher puts the composition of
texts I, II, and III at about the same time and concludes they were
contemporary with T3 and T4 of "Tale of Years".

Where this breaks down for both me and you and is when, exactly, JRRT
wrote the account of the battle of Azanulbizar and the final
genealogy, which put all the names into their proper places (the
intermediate genealogies had some differences from the final one,
mostly indicating some people went to Moria who didn't in the
published text).

> > In fact, this all came about AFTER Allen & Unwin had REJECTED
> > THE LORD OF THE RINGS (see preamble to Letter 128), so he
> > had no publisher for the sequel at the time anyway.
>
> Yes. A&U had rejected LotR at the time of letter #130. That is irrelevant
> to the fact that Tolkien was still trying to get it published... as
> witnessed in letter #131.

Just refuting your nonsense about Tolkien not having time to work on
THE HOBBIT. As usual, you've screwed up the chronology of the events
and don't know what you're talking about.