The structure of the proposed material for publication showed in this letter could orientate in some ways but I think does not fit with a TftE project whatever is.

First, is the structure of a Silmarillion 'edited' by Tolkien, that is, his extracts from the Thain's Book.

Well I say this entering in the Perilous Realm, of course.

Second, this is the structure in Tolkien's mind in 1951. After this date many texts were writen.

For my part, except the concept of the Annals (in my opinion imposible of manage) and the material that were published at last in the Appendices of TLotR, the rest of the titles were used.

Greetings.

I just got halfway through writing a post on this letter over in Books, and then read it more carefully and had to scrap it: there's a headnote directly above what Arvegil posted which reads "[* proposed for publication]". The only asterisks in what follows are attached to: "Music of the Ainur", "The History of the Eldar", "The Rings of Power", "The Downfall of Numenor", and "The Lord of the Rings" (The Hobbit being already published). So Tolkien wasn't proposing to publish the Annals, the Lay, and so on; he was specifically not doing that.

In that light, the note after the First Age makes more sense than it did on my first readthrough: he doesn't want to publish items 2-8 at all, but feels that "The History of the Eldar" needs expansion around the Great Tales, which should draw from the fuller versions. Similarly, he didn't at that time envisage "The Languages of the Third Age" or the two Third Age Annals being published with LotR, though in the event the Annals at least made it in.

(He also notes that The Silmarillion - the First and Second age stories taken together - is probably about the length of The Hobbit, which is a step down from his belief elsewhere that it would match the length of LotR.)

Maybe you both already noticed this, but I misunderstood the new list on my first few readings, so I wanted to mention. :)

hS

I wanted to insist again that this is the idea Tolkien had of publish the material in 1951.
In 1937 had another idea with other material.
But in 1951 the Mithology had evolutioned
In, to say, 1964 while he was 'working', Alas! in TS, necesarily would have another idea.

Greetings