The Fortunate Misunderstanding

In the end, Allen & Unwin’s failure to recognize that although the two batches of material Tolkien sent them on 21st September 1947 were similar in appearance they were different in kind, each having its own title or subtitle, proved to be a fortunate misunderstanding. Eager to please one of their authors when they could, especially at a time when Tolkien was becoming increasingly distressed over the length of the as-yet-unpublished Lord of the Rings in a time of paper shortages and by their lack of interest in The Silmarillion, they scrupulously incorporated all his changes into the next printing, even to the extent of replacing a five-page section of the old edition with a ten-page section in the new. As Christopher Tolkien points out (letter to Taum Santoski, 3rd March 1989), when Tolkien wrote in his cover letter of 21st September 1947 that he was sending Allen & Unwin ‘. . . some notes on The Hobbit; and (for the possible amusement of yourself and Rayner) a specimen of re-writing of Chapter V . . .’ (Letters p. 124; emphasis mine),¹ the publisher failed to grasp that the ‘and’ linked two entirely distinct categories of material. When Stanley Unwin informed Tolkien on 27th September that he was ‘passing on The Hobbit corrections to our Production Department’, Tolkien naturally assumed he meant the first sheet – that is, parts (ii) and (iii) above and further assumed, since Unwin said nothing further about the ‘specimen of re-writing’, that its inclusion had proved impossible. Not until Unwin sent him the proofs of the revised sections the next time the book was up for reprint on 26th July 1950 did Tolkien discover that (i), (ii), and (iii) had all been accepted and, although surprised, he quickly decided to make any necessary changes in The Lord of the Rings manuscript to match this change:

. . . I have now made up my mind to accept the change and its consequences. The thing is now old enough for me to take a fairly impartial view, and it seems to me that the revised version is in itself better, in motive and narrative – and certainly would make the sequel (if ever published) much more natural.

—JRRT to SU, 1st August 1950; Letters p. 141.

He further noted that

Such people as I have consulted think that the alteration is in itself an improvement . . .

—ibid., 10th September 1950; Letters p. 142.

He had now begun work on the prefatory note requested by Allen & Unwin to explain the difference between the first and second editions, sending them one version of it with his 10th September letter – being careful to specify that this was

. . . a specimen of the kind of thing that I should want to insert . . . This is not intended as copy; but if you would return it, with any comment you like, it would be helpful.

—ibid., italics mine.

This was probably the ‘long version’ – i.e., (A) or (B) – which was replaced by the ‘short version’ a few days later:

I enclose . . . a copy of the briefest form of the prefatory note: which is intended as copy, if you should think it well to use it in the reprint.

—JRRT to SU, 14th September 1950; Letters p. 142.

Thus, the original first edition text was replaced by a new and improved text which so overwhelmed its predecessor in sales that the existence of the earlier version of the Gollum chapter soon came to be known only through references to it in the editions that supplanted it. The experience also showed Tolkien that he could revisit the book more than a decade later (1944 vs. 1930–33) and improve it while also binding it more closely to what had become his masterwork: The Lord of the Rings. This discovery would in turn lead first to ‘The Quest of Erebor’ in 1954 and ultimately to the Fifth Phase, the abortive third edition now known as the 1960 Hobbit.