Tolkien's final First Age timeline

[Huinesoron]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

An easy mistake to make! Though Hostetter did a fine job for the most part in putting this book together, I do miss Christopher Tolkien's way of very clearly laying out the relations of the texts, and noting the appearance of important new ideas.

Agreed. Hostetter did an amazing job, and I'm incredibly glad to have the book; but I'm always being caught out by the handful of Part 1 texts which are conceptually later than chapters which follow them! I think he was following Tolkien's numbering, or at least ordering, but 1.XIII consists of four texts, numbered 1, 2A, 2B, and 3; 1 is the latest of the set, 2B seems to include Tolkien making decisions adopted in 2A, and 3 is dated with reference to the following chapter, but not to either of the other texts! This is why I keep making potted timelines - I'm trying to get my head round it all!

(Actually, that would be a more useful timeline than the one I started this thread with: a chronology of when the NoME texts were all written, and how they fall into HoME. Hmm...)

hS