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After an excellent response from Tolwen in another thread, I was reminded that originally the Hobbit was not set in the world of the Silmarillion and was only placed there when the Professor was asked for a sequel to the Hobbit.

How do you think the world of the Hobbit would have evolved if the sequel were not set in ME as we know it today?

What would you have liked to have seen in such a work? Or not have seen for that matter.

For myself, I would have liked for Gandalf to have been simply a human wizard and not evolved into the one of the Istari.

In a lot of ways, The Hobbit is more similar to Farmer Giles of Ham. They're a little bit more towards the silly side of the spectrum whereas LotR is more serious. The time periods seem to be closer too. Bilbo has a mechanical clock and Giles has a blunderbuss, both of which seem out of place in the LotR.

While the relationship of The Hobbit to the rest of Tolkien's legendarium was initially very vague, I think it was there almost from the beginning. We have: 1) Swords from Gondolin; 2) Elrond Half-elven, brother to the first Numenorean King; 3) The reference to an earlier Elvenking based on Thingol Greymantle and the fall of Doriath; 4) The Necromancer, who is seemingly based on whatever Tolkien's conception was of Sauron in his then current version of the Quenta Silmarillion. Even the Arkenstone bears a more than passing resemblance to Tolkien's description of the Silmarils--not that it was actually supposed to be one of Feanor's gems.

When Tolkien wrote The Hobbit he already had this extensive world which he assumed would never be published. Rather than set The Hobbit in that world, he borrowed ideas from it to create a self-contained story. The Elvenking and his halls aren't Thingol and Menegroth, but Tolkien copied these ideas and put them in The Hobbit. The Arkenstone isn't a Silmaril, but he took the idea of a Silmaril and plopped it into the story. Mirkwood "is" Taur-nu-Fuin (which means, more or less, "Mirkwood"). The Necromancer "is" Sauron.

But this doesn't place The Hobbit within Middle-earth; it just steals some story-elements to make a new story. It was when Tolkien was writing a sequel that he decided that maybe all this stuff DID take place in Middle-earth, but NOT during the events of elvish history he'd recorded. Instead, he said that all that stuff was ancient history to hobbits, inventing the ages of the world. Some of these elements were now indeed references to his legendarium (Elrond, Gondolin), but some were just weird coincidences (Mirkwood and the Elvenking, the Arkenstone).

Otaku-sempai wrote:While the relationship of The Hobbit to the rest of Tolkien's legendarium was initially very vague, I think it was there almost from the beginning. We have: 1) Swords from Gondolin; 2) Elrond Half-elven, brother to the first Numenorean King; 3) The reference to an earlier Elvenking based on Thingol Greymantle and the fall of Doriath; 4) The Necromancer, who is seemingly based on whatever Tolkien's conception was of Sauron in his then current version of the Quenta Silmarillion. Even the Arkenstone bears a more than passing resemblance to Tolkien's description of the Silmarils--not that it was actually supposed to be one of Feanor's gems.

Sorry but I'm disagree with this point. The big part of stuff that connects The Hobbit with LotR and the Silmarillion was added by Tolkien in the third edition of the book (1966).

Fëanor wrote: Sorry but I'm disagree with this point. The big part of stuff that connects The Hobbit with LotR and the Silmarillion was added by Tolkien in the third edition of the book (1966).

How do the pre-1966 books differ from the post 1966 books?

Southron Loremaster wrote:

Fëanor wrote: Sorry but I'm disagree with this point. The big part of stuff that connects The Hobbit with LotR and the Silmarillion was added by Tolkien in the third edition of the book (1966).

How do the pre-1966 books differ from the post 1966 books?

I'm a bit confused as well. As far as I know, the only significant changes in the 1966 edition are the revisions to "Riddles in the Dark" and parts of the chapter immediately following it.

I have the Douglas Anderson ‘The Annotated Hobbit’ edition but... in Spanish, so I´m going to put the sentence in Spanish and then try to translate it. Obviously I´m not English native

E.g. When Bilbo and the dwarves are for the first time in Rivendell Elrond says: "They are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin". In the original version he said: "swords of the elves that are now called Gnomes".

I know is not a big difference, but the book is full of little changes like this one.

Fëanor wrote:I have the Douglas Anderson ‘The Annotated Hobbit’ edition but... in Spanish, so I´m going to put the sentence in Spanish and then try to translate it. Obviously I´m not English native

E.g. When Bilbo and the dwarves are for the first time in Rivendell Elrond says: "They are old swords, very old swords of the High Elves of the West, my kin". In the original version he said: "swords of the elves that are now called Gnomes".

I know is not a big difference, but the book is full of little changes like this one.

This does not disprove Otaku's claim, though, Feanor, since "Gnomes" were one of Tolkien's first name/concept for the Noldor. If anything it sort of establishes that the first version of the Hobbit was written already with some forethought towards the Silmarillion in mind.

Rocmistro wrote:This does not disprove Otaku's claim, though, Feanor, since "Gnomes" were one of Tolkien's first name/concept for the Noldor. If anything it sort of establishes that the first version of the Hobbit was written already with some forethought towards the Silmarillion in mind.

Thank you! In fact, The Book of Lost Tales contains many references to the Gnomes as Tolkien's early name for the Noldor.