Hello and welcome to Talking Tolkien. You've probably seen quite a lot on this channel as to how we've looked at the history of Middle-earth which was a 12 book series edited by J.R. Tolkien's son Christopher which basically covered the entirety of Tolkien's output from his very early writings and after the First World War to the writings at the end of his life and that encapsulates things like the writing of Lord of the Rings. But reading that you might notice that there's one notable emission and that is that throughout that there's no mention of the writing process for the Hobbit and the reason for that is when the Hobbit was created. It wasn't Tolkien didn't really envisage it as part of this wider legendarium as he referred to it. So Christopher Tolkien didn't go into that when he compiled history of Middle-earth. However there was a lot of appetite to see Tolkien's creative mind behind that and the the writings that he did. So in 2007 Christopher Tolkien passed over the responsibility for that work to someone else and that's what we'll be looking at today. First of all I'd just like to say thanks to everyone for the lovely comments that I got after the last video. It's great to be back and yeah hopefully we'll carry on making some more videos. So the man charged with compiling General Tolkien's notes for the Hobbit it was gentleman called John D. Raydliff. He was studying in the university right next to where Tolkien's manuscripts had been sent in the United States of America and he'd done a lot of work with those as well as supported Christopher Tolkien in writing some sections of the history of Middle-earth regarding Lord of the Rings. So he had a good understanding of those papers so yeah Christopher Tolkien entrusted that task to him. When it was first released the history of the Hobbit as it the wider work was known. It came in two parts. We'll get this first part here. History of the Hobbit. Mr Baggins. This was the original hardback in the came out and then after that we get this one which was returned to Bagend. So they were released as I said 2007 and in these there was loads of information and drafts of the book that hadn't really been seen before draft of the Hobbit hadn't been seen. So it's worth going back as well and so the Hobbit was published in 1937. Before Tolkien had really given thought to this wider mythology of Middle-earth. So it was kind of retconned if you like when Lord of the Rings was being written and finalized and Tolkien realized that some of the stuff he'd put in the Hobbit didn't quite make sense in their wider context of Lord of the Rings. For instance when Golem just gives the ring away he wouldn't have done that if the ring had the power over him. So he rewrote that section that chapter riddles in the dark and a new version of the Hobbit was published in 1951. A little bit later on in 1960 after the Lord of the Rings was out and had met with a lot of critical acclaim and popularity. Tolkien thought that it made the Hobbit look a little bit childish in comparison and he decided to rewrite the entire book and bring it to tone, darker and more in touch with the Lord of the Rings itself. However he didn't feel that was very successful and felt it took some of the spirit out of the Hobbit. So that that version in 1960 wasn't published. However it is released in these books so we are able to go back now and read that. There's also in these books there's an earlier version of or earlier drafts from the Hobbit. So all of this is in there and it's supported by John Raycliffe's commentary as well. Similar to how Christopher Tolkien does it in the history of Middle Earth. It's those kind of things just put it into context. So there's loads of stuff in there. One of the stuff we got there's a lot of illustrations as well so there's some plates as well that we can show you here. Hopefully you can see some of those. And she again go back to drawings made by Tolkien. We know that the publishers, Alan and William were really keen on getting Tolkien to do the illustrations because they were impressed with some of the work that he'd already done. So he agreed to do that. So that's the history of the Hobbit. Now mention there were these two books that were first released 2007. They were released individually. I remember seeing them when I went to pick up the children of Hoorin so that came out around a similar time I'm sure it did because in the shop and I saw these as well in there which when the internet wasn't as popular as it was now I didn't even know this existed so I am happily snap those up. And then a few months afterwards these were re-released in a box set with the Hobbit in the same kind of size in a lovely box set. I didn't get that and that's actually become quite valuable and quite hard to find though. So if you do have a copy of that it's worth looking after. And even these I think these only had one printing maybe so they're not they're not very widely seen either now because they were replaced in 2011 so four years later by a one volume version which was quite an unwieldy tone but yeah that came in a one volume version which I have got and I've looked everywhere for it but I can't find it so there's a picture of it you have to trust me on that one. And then that was it until this year 2020-23 earlier this year by half a column so now that they were going to release it in a one version one volume history which goes along really in the same style as the book you can see over my shoulder so the idea is it sits on those and it's absolutely massive it's bigger than even the previous one volume version I'm not sure if that's because the paper's a bit bigger I presume it's it's gonna be got this from front cover which is by Ted Nassmith so that's that's what we've got in 2013 what's interesting about this is it's not a new version of the 2011 book the ISBN is exact the same so again be careful if you hunt in this down second time but what is different is inside where you have the printing version this one's I got this first when it first came out and this is printing for so I'm presuming that all the ones with four were the first editions of this new colorful version and the previous one I had I'm sure that was that had a one in some presuming there were three three versions of that one until number four so that's what we get there so yet you also get it on Kindle which is probably like so if I was to read this I'd probably read it on the Kindle version which I got really cheap at some point so there we have it if you're really into the Hobbit this is a great great book to get it's probably being just by the nature of it because obviously Tolkien wrote it as a children's book so it's not had the analysis or the the depth maybe the the Lord of the Rings has and tie that fits into the wider mythology but then yeah still a really interesting book it's good to see some of those earlier drafts and that see it's kind of fair attempts to to change the tone of the book so that's what we've got here there was also worth mentioning there's also a deluxe version of this that came out this year which again goes with those Harbour Collins books that we've got at the moment they're fine but I didn't buy it it's quite expensive if anyone's got any comments on that we do own it let me know what I'll him what you think again it was quite a quite a big book that but yeah that's that's where we are with that in the moment what I'd like to see I'd like to see these kind of covers almost re-released so that people were able to get something that was a little bit more readable than the one volume version or even an update of that box set I don't know maybe one day but yeah that's that's what we've got for this through the Hobbit today I've put some links in below if you want to look up on Amazon feel free to use them there are a few links probably the best way to support my channel so thank you to anyone that purchase through those and yeah thanks thanks again for watching we'll be back soon with some more Tolkien books and thanks