The History of LotR - Chapter-by-Chapter Companion

[Bêthberry]

davem, and also Child and Esty,

I have only volumes II and XII, so I won't be able to follow along here--except teasingly as I have with Heren, who graciously accepted my humour--but I am very intrigued by the "six narrative voices" in the drafts.

davem has kindly at length copied excerpts from Paul Edmund Thomas' essay, but I would find it easier to consider his question about storyline or narrator if I could see some examples, not of Thomas' explication, but of Tolkien's own writing.

Is is possible to copy here a similar passage in the different narrative voices? Or if not, is is possible to take a passage which represents the tone of each narrative voice and present it here?

Child,

However did he come up with so many of these themes and ideas in the first six weeks of writing?

The variations you point out are fascinating. If I have read your excerpts correctly, Tolkien started out with some first idea of a character for this Dark Lord, who then became excised from subsequent drafts as an explicit character. If this suppostion is correct, it makes the final depiction of Sauron very interesting: a focus upon an opposing character who ultimately became absent, if I am making myself clear here! (I'm sure this point, too, should be followed through all revisions and drafts and not merely this six drafts of the first part.)

It would seem to me that Tolkien had many, many ideas and directions rambling around in that restless imagination of his and that in the process of writing something decided him upon the best way to proceed.

Here's hoping I don't have my foot on my keyboard, so to speak, since I don't have the relevant HoME.