Beren and Lúthien

[marycatelli]

Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien

For people who want to understand what happened to the tale in its various revisions before it reached the form that Christopher Tolkien put in the Silmarillion and which gets alluded in The Lord of the Rings.

I find it interesting to watch his concept of Middle-Earth shift with world-building.

Comments

[asakiyume]

What sorts of shifts have you noticed? (I know that originally he conceived of the elves as fairies, but moved away from that--that's probably from before this, though.)

[marycatelli]

It's part that, and part that it seems more chaotic and free-form, not to say spontaneous in invention -- the world-building is less.