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I think we might have had even less than that if he had had that option. Since Tolkien always wanted to re-write the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings so that they would themselves be more like the Silmarillion I wonder if, had he had the option (as he might have had he released them under some of our current publication laws) he would have actually pulled further printing of the books until he could get around to writing the "correct" versions. And since, as you pointed out, he probably would NEVER have been content with the version he came up with we might have ended up with a world in which TH and LOTR were largely unknown with copies of the originals published before the "pull back" as rare books to be sought out by those with deep pockets and an interest in esoterica. This doesn't happen often but it does sometimes happen (one example I can think of from Chidren's literature was when Kay Thompson banned further publication of all her Eloise books except the first one and it wasn't until her rights expired and publication rights went to the illustrator a few years ago that they came out again.)
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