New Tolkien coming!

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Tolkien (or H&S) made a mistake in "176 miles out from Gondor", which should be "176 miles to Edoras" or something similar

Concur. The document reads very clearly "Gondor" not "Edoras," which can only be a slip in what was a very hastily jotted note. Since the subject is "Errand-riders" and he used the preposition "out," the natural reference grammatically would be to distance from origin, although this plainly was not what he really meant.

In S3 March 6 entry, Gandalf rides "139 miles between 11.30 p.m on 5 Mar. and [7>] 7.30 a.m", the time and distance would exactly match MSS 4/2/17/14a, if one accepts the "11.30" reading:

Don't concur. MSS 4/2/17/14a ("Gandalf's Ride") unmistakably reads "11.20:"*

March
5 11.20 Leaves Dolbaran

I don't think the ten minutes mattered a great deal to the T/D calculation, but it does seem to have been important that Gandalf with Pippin not dawdle after the Nazgul showed!

Remember that the March 6 entry, on Page 8 of MSS 4/2/18, was written before "Gandalf's Ride," in accordance with the old timeline. He saw no need to emend the entry because the leg from Dol Baran to Edoras didn't require changing, and so evidently he omitted his small ten minute adjustment.

*One can compare the "11.20" to the "7.30" immediately below; the 2 cannot be a 3