‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

In this edition of The Lord of the Rings, prepared for the fiftieth anniversary of its publication, between three & four hundred emendations have been made following an exhaustive review of past editions & printings.....

Most of the demonstrable errors noted by Christopher Tolkien in The History of Middle Earth also have been corrected, such as the distance from the Brandywine Bridge to the Ferry (ten miles rather than twenty) & the number of Merry’s ponies (five rather than six), shadows of earlier drafts. But those inconsistencies of content, such as Gimli’s famous (& erroneous) statement in Book III, Chapter 7, ‘Till now I have hewn naught but wood since I left Moria’, which would require rewriting to emend rather than simple correction, remain unchanged.

I’ve just got my hands on this new (limited) edition (A ‘standard’ edition of this revision is out in December). Now, I haven’t checked every page, so I can’t go into depth here. Two things I have checked & can confirm. The Earendelinwe (Bilbo’s song of Earendel) is unchanged, & doesn’t include the final changes - the references to the Feanorians attack on the Havens of Sirion, but the change to Aragorn’s words in reference to Pippin being ‘smaller than the other’ has been amended to ‘smaller than the others.

Now, is this change as ‘trivial’ as it seems? Aragorn’s whole attitude to the Hobbits is changed by this addition of one letter. CT notes (Treason of Isengard p404) :

An error in the text of TT may be mentioned here. Aragorn did not say that Pippin was smaller than the other’ - he would not refer to Merry in such a remote tone - but smaller than the others’, ie Merry & Frodo & Sam.

So, for fifty years readers have understood Aragorn to have spoken of Pippin (& by extension all the hobbits) in a ‘remote tone’. Now we have an new, authorised, edition with three or four hundred emendations - all authorised by CT (admittedly the greatest living expert on his father’s writings) but none authorised by Tolkien himself.

Question is, should we accept this new edition as ‘canonical’? Which version of the text should have priority - the new revision or the current ‘standard’ one?

There are also a couple of new family trees - Bolger of Budgeford & Boffin of the Yale - are they equally ‘canonical’ with the ones for Baggins, Took, Brandybuck & Gamgee in the standard edition?

Finally, is there anyone out there who will refuse to accept these changes, who wont ever accept that Aragorn didn’t use a ‘remote tone’ in referring to the Hobbits? Is this edition, & the thinking behind it, valid?