Yes but William, what about the art of subcreation? Something has to be the story, and even Tolkien bowed to that.
And if JRRT wants to niggle away for years, no problem, but he's still working toward a story to be published. And if he could change his mind about something right up to the point that that something was physically taken from him -- I'd say all the more reason to consider author-published work as canon. At least we know "that much" about a given thing: it prevailed into the Secondary World.
And even when JRRT just couldn't help himself, he still realized that stepping on already published work is simply not the same as continuing to niggle or revise aspects of the subcreated world that nobody knows about. The Secondary World exists on bookshelves for a once and future readership.
Quote:
"It may be suggested that whereas my father set great store by consistency at all points with The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, so little concerning the First Age had appeared in print that he was under far less constraint. I am inclined to think, however, that the primary explanation of these differences lies rather in his writing largely from memory. The histories of the First Age would always remain in a somewhat fluid state so long as they were not fixed in a published state; and he certainly did not have all the relevant manuscripts clearly arranged and set out before him."
Foreword, The Peoples of Middle-Earth
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To me, this is another way to say that Tolkien (and quite naturally in my opinion), treats fixed work as canon.
Ursula Le Guin did some fancy dancing with Earthsea, for another example I've used in the past. But she herself
published the later books of course, leaving no question as to whether she truly wanted to shine such a new light on Earthsea.