Variorum “Silmarillion”: One Day, Conceivably

On February 15th, 1974, less than six months after Tolkien's death, Rayner Unwin of GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN, and Austin Olney, of HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY (Tolkien's US publisher), visited Christopher Tolkien in Oxford. The following day, on Saturday 16th, Unwin and Olney attended the annual general meeting (AGM) of THE TOLKIEN SOCIETY, where they spoke to attendees both formally and informally. Charles E. Noad's report on the AGM—or, more accurately, the dinner and discussion afterwards—was published in Mallorn (No. 8, 1974, pp. 20–26). They had ‘all been waiting to hear’ (from Rayner) about ‘The Silmarillion’ in particular.

 

In early 1974, Christopher Tolkien was still in the process of assembling and collating the “Silmarillion” material and arranging the papers in a preliminary order; Guy Gavriel Kay would join Christopher in October. In February, the book—as a planned publication (rather than the manuscript material itself)—was still in an ‘inchoate’ state, but Rayner had already read bits of it, describing the ‘Creation story’ (presumably the Ainulindalë ) as ‘beautifully written’. 

 

Rayner seemed clear on several points. The published book would be a ‘literary version’ of the vast “Silmarillion” material and would be presented as a single ‘homogeneous’ work; it would likely come in at around the size/length of a single volume of The Lord of the Rings ; it would need three years (or so) to edit; Christopher was already drawing a map. Noad's write-up even voices the idea that The Lord of the Rings might need to be revised (again)—presumably by Christopher—in ‘light of the contents’. This was Rayner's understanding of how things stood in February 1974.

 

Rayner also made another remark that I've always found intriguing: 

 

Conceivably, there might one day be a variorum “Silmarillion”, but that must lie far in the future.

 

Interesting word choice. Perhaps Rayner and Christopher discussed the idea of a variorum edition of The Silmarillion when he visited; however, I don't recall ever having read of Rayner—or, for that matter, anyone else—mentioning ‘variorum’ in the context of The Silmarillion (or “Silmarillion” material) at any other time. Rayner's comment about the published book being a ‘literary version’ certainly makes clear that he believed, in February 1974, that any notion of a more academic treatment of the material was not what Christopher was then working towards, or what GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN would contemplate publishing (at that time).

 

This is interesting, as it is contradicted by Guy Gavriel Kay's own account—given by Charles E. Noad in ‘A Tower in Beleriand’ (Amon Hen, No. 11, 1988, pp. 16–18)—of Christopher's work on some of the material, prior to Kay's arrival. Christopher's ‘initial idea’, of a ‘scholarly text’ with ‘variant readings’ and ‘editorial apparatus’, sounds reasonably close to a variorum like treatment of the “Silmarillion” material. Christopher had already drafted two chapters in this ‘academic style’ before Kay arrived, placing this work to some point between late February and early October 1974; prior to Kay's October arrival, but after Rayner's February visit. (If it had been completed before Rayner's visit, he would surely have mentioned it.)

 

These two accounts of Christopher's initial treatment of the “Silmarillion” material (academic/scholarly vs. literary) seem to be at odds, certainly in respect to timing. Perhaps Christopher was still undecided and was experimenting with different approaches; perhaps, in February 1974, he was still of a mind to present the texts in scholarly (even ‘variorum’) format, despite Rayner's comments implying that this approach was neither current or likely in the near future. In any case, Kay (apparently) persuaded Christopher, shortly after they started working together, to change his approach to one that delivered a ‘straightforward narrative’ structure. It should be noted that Kay's recollections of working with Christopher Tolkien in 1974–75—his 1987 talk was based (in part) on his own contemporary notes—were made over ten years after the event. Christopher Tolkien never (to my knowledge) gave any detailed account of how he and Kay worked together on The Silmarillion.

 

This ‘academic style’ is not dissimilar to how Christopher presented much of the material for The History of Middle-earth (HOME) series; however, I have never seen any of the HOME described as variorum in presentation. In reality, Christopher's presentation of the “Silmarillion” material in HOME is in fact (in his words) a ‘new presentation of The History of the Silmarillion’ (and a ‘severe contraction of it’); the latter being the unpublished 2,600 page ‘private study’ Christopher completed after the publication of the ‘constructed text’ that was The Silmarillion (1977):

 

an exhaustive investigation and analysis of all the materials concerned with what came to be called the Elder Days, from the earliest beginnings, omitting no detail of name-form or textual variation.

— CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN (c. 2006) 

 

Perhaps the genesis of The History of the Silmarillion—the stimulus to write/compile it—was a conversation Christopher Tolkien and Rayner Unwin had on February 15th, 1974. This unpublished work might be the closest we have to the variorum “Silmarillion” Rayner Unwin envisaged.  

 

For more information on The History of the Silmarillion please see my original post Christopher Tolkien's Unpublished “The History of the Silmarillion”. I will hopefully post something a little more substantial on the pre-publication timeline of The Silmarillion in the near future.