Talk:The History of The Hobbit

Question

Does the author of this work intend to bring a similar work on The Lord of the Rings (i.e. The History of the Lord of the Rings)? This would be a fascinating volume too; but to achieve a detailed result it would have to occupy several large volumes. Or does a work of this sort already exist? I am aware of Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull's The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, which is very good, but perhaps a even more detailed analytical work would be desireable too. Any answers? Eam91 29/12/2007, GMT.

There is already such a work -- and indeed, it occupies 12 volumes. Published since 1984 under the editorship of Christopher Tolkien, The History of Middle-earth gives definitive shape to what would become the Silmarillion, the Lord of the Rings, and the Narn i Hin Hurin. The originals are hard to find, a set costly, but in the UK at least HarperCollins has re-released them as a smaller number of thicker volumes. Clevelander96 (talk) 03:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

More precisely, The History of The Lord of the Rings covers the LotR drafts, and is about 3.5 volumes of HoME. Carcharoth (talk) 03:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Publishing history

Added info for the one volume editions published in 2023 and the UK ISBN numbers for all books in the publishing history Fundinnn (talk) 14:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Fundinnn, the mass of ISBNs and variously formatted publication data is making the text look rather cluttered. We don't usually have ISBNs in the text itself on this WikiProject; I suggest that either we drop the ISBNs altogether, or we have minimal detail in the text, supported by full citations. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:25, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I do not check my wikipedia notifications that often. So I was unaware of your reply and deletion of my additions until now. I did not ignore you on purpose.

I know when I look up books on wikipedia, as a collector I would want to find the ISBN numbers in a publishing history, so I added them. I do now see there are some ISBN's in the info box. 2 of the 3 mentioned in the text and one for the e-book that is not mentioned anywhere else. There was editions missing, so I added those. I followed the format of the editions already in the publishing history I thought other than the ISBN's. Would be a shame to leave it with an incomplete publication history like it is at present.

I am sorry to have left the page in a mess, I am not very experienced in wikipedia editing, I just tried to add info since the publication history mentioned just 3 out of the 9 editions I am aware of. Well 10 now, if we take into account the e-book.

If a full list of editions with the paperbacks, boxed set and deluxe is not warranted even if organised som other way, I would like the inclusion of the first appearance of the one-volume revised and updated edition, as this is as relevant as the inclusion of the abridged edition. Like this?:

The History of the Hobbit: One Volume Edition. This was a revised and updated edition gathering the two volumes into one volume for the first time. It was published in the UK on 27 Oct. 2011. Fundinnn (talk) 22:29, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Um, the only objection is cluttering the text with ISBNs. When you have a mass of numbers and dates, indeed any mass of repetitive data, it's best to tidy it in some way, using tables, citations, or whatever. That remains true if you're presenting a lot of editions. Plain text quickly becomes indigestible when any sort of formula is oft-repeated. Your sample paragraph sounds innocent enough on its own, but if there are to be dozens like that then a table would be far better. Chiswick Chap (talk) 00:21, 10 October 2023 (UTC)

Something like the table I made below? (I could not get it to show up correctly in-thread) Fundinnn (talk) 18:04, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Perfect! Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:18, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Ok will publish change in main article Fundinnn (talk) 18:20, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind me tweaking the layout and order. I may be biased, since I couldn't care less about ISBNs in articles - I hope you don't feel the need to add the Houghton Mifflin ISBNs! - but I think the contents and reception should take priority over them. It's a shame that ISTCs didn't progress, as they would have been a better way of identifying the relevant contents and tracking the changes. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 20:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

That is quite alright. I just placed the info where the section was previously. I agree that this placement is better. I have no intention of including American editions. With a few exceptions most american editions of Tolkien are carbon copies of the British versions. (There are some William Morrow editions for some of them as well if you want them ;-) )

The reason I am so interested in including ISBN is that this is the book industry standard for identifying different editions. A description of an edition is of less value for us collectors without an ISBN to hang it on

Did you change anything else than the placement of the table and the removal of ISBN's from the top right info box? (Since you changed 'layout and order'). There was mention there of the ISBN of the Kindle edition, that I do not mention in my table. I am unsure if e-books should be included in such a list. Fundinnn (talk) 22:27, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

I added a genre for Rateliff's work (Literary studies). I didn't notice that the e-book was not in your extended table. I don't think it matters. Are e-books going to be collectable? NFTs? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 22:39, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Well other books like The Hobbit itself have had regular e-book editions and an 'enhanced' edition that includes the artwork. But I think it best to leave e-book listings out for now for this book.

If you ask me the other two genres listed would be correct for the subject for this book rather than for this book itself, but I guess since the draft material included is children's literature. Literary studies should be the main genre though I think. But not a change to anything I wrote, so not really for me to say Fundinnn (talk) 22:52, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for furter improving the publishing history table in several ways. Also for making the ISBNs searchable.

Is there a reason why there is a dash after the 978? in the ISBN's now. A technical reason perhaps? Just unusual for ISBNs to have that format. They are usually without dashes 9781904633464 or with dashes 978-1-904633-46-4 EAN/prefix-country/group-publisher-title-check. So I am just curious if it was a Wikipedia thing? Fundinnn (talk) 01:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Should be with dashes all the way. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:54, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

OK. I've formatted all the ISBNs 3-1-2-6-1, as printed on my copy of this publication and as exemplified in ISBN. As far as I can see, this bears no particular relationship to the country/publisher/title divisions within the ISBN, which vary for different countries, and I can see no reason for this grouping, but it does make the ISBN column more compact in this table. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

And I've just discovered (and used) {{Format ISBN}}. This should be automatically subst:ed by a bot, according to the documentation. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 12:51, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Except within ref tags, where the bot doesn't go. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:06, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

According to the doc page, it is subst: that does not work inside refs, but AnomieBOT will work in refs provided subst: has not been used there. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:39, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes that fixed the one problem you had with the previous formatting. (978-0-26-110291-0 when 978-0-261-10291-0 is correct). Country-publisher-title all have flexible number of digits. Only the first 3 and the last one are fixed. Was typing up a longer explanation of the ISBN permutations, but then you found the solution by yourself.

Another small question. Should the notes go below the references? As is they are now they are closest to the table they are notes for, just wondering if notes should be below references the same way the table is below the main article text Fundinnn (talk) 13:17, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

The standard order laid down in the MoS is text, see also, notes, refs, sources, external links. All except text and refs are optional. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:19, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Now I know. Thank you both User:Verbarson and User:Chiswick Chap for the help. I know too little about the way of things here. I hope my addition did not cause too much of a disturbance. Fundinnn (talk) 13:26, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

No worries! Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:32, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

I admit I would shed no tears if the whole table disappeared, but working on it has been worthwhile just for what I have learned in the process. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 13:47, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Doing that sort of thing for English-language editions of The Hobbit makes some kind of bibliophilic sense, however boring the rest of us may find it; doing it for an academic study is rather close to overkill, indeed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:04, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

It has already started to get recursive: see J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography § Publication! -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 14:31, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Ooh that book is a grail for many a Tolkien collector. Not enough was printed and many wants it. Fundinnn (talk) 15:39, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

What has it got on its bookshelveses, my preciouss? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:01, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

English-language editions of The Hobbit That list is not complete in containing all editions (i think), is inconsistent in using ISBN-10 or ISBN-13, or providing one when there clearly is one and only goes up to 2012. Some books have size and number of pages, others do not. If I really wanted to let the bibliophile loose, there would be a picture of each edition in addition to the descriptions (Cover, back and spine, with and without dustjacket.) But I am not touching it. Fundinnn (talk) 16:13, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

...And some months later, without any more discussion (or was there another 'invitation to discuss' I did not see?), you quietly axed it all together. That might be right and proper to do so, I am a novice in the world of contributing to Wikipedia pages as I have mentioned, but what changed in the intervening months to no longer make it admissible? I have tried to glean some clue from the lengthy article about what Wikipedia is not that you cited as reason, but could find no specific mention of bibliography not being allowed, though I am sure it is in there somewhere. I see it as a loss and wish more articles included such information rather than expunged it. I will try not to darken the editing doorsteps of Wikipedia again Fundinnn (talk) 17:09, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary, nor a catalogue, and I think that basically encompasses "not a bibliographic database" either. A book article should give date of first publication, and if we're being rather thorough perhaps also first publication in different countries, first translation, and perhaps first paperback edition. Trying to keep up with all editions is not our brief: this is a text article, not a list, and certainly not a database. Look at it like this: a reader (let's call her Laxmi) wants to get a reasonable idea of what "The history of the Hobbit" is. Aha, first published, aha basic summary, aha, critical response. So far so obvious, that's what an encyclopedia can be expected to do. "Aha, Reissue of the 2011 edition with a new dustjacket/binding and on different paper" — I don't think so, frankly. That's the long and the short of it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:02, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Publication history

Title	Description	Publication date (UK)	Format	ISBN
The History of The Hobbit: Volume I: Mr. Baggins	Contains the first half of Tolkien's draft material for The Hobbit, along with commentary.	04 May 2007	Hardcover	9780007235551
		03 Mar. 2008	Paperback	9780007266463
The History of The Hobbit: Volume II: Return to Bag-End	Contains the second half of Tolkien's original manuscript draft, with commentary and later drafts and appendices.	18 Jun. 2007	Hardcover	9780007250660
		03. Mar. 2008	Paperback	9780007266470
The Hobbit, Mr Baggins and the Return to Bag-End: Boxed Set	Contains both volumes together with The Hobbit from 2007 with 5th edition text.	03 Nov. 2008	Boxed (Hardcover)	9780261102910
The History of the Hobbit: One Volume Edition	First combined edition. Revised and updated.	27 Oct. 2011	Hardcover	9780007440825
A Brief History of The Hobbit	An abridged edition of 550 pages. The abridgment was mainly of Rateliff's commentary, rather than Tolkien's source texts.	15 Jan. 2015	Paperback	9780007557257
The History of the Hobbit: One Volume Edition (Trade edition)	Reissue of the 2011 edition with a new dustjacket/binding and on different paper.	16 Mar. 2023	Hardcover	9780007440825
The History of the Hobbit: One Volume Edition (Deluxe edition)	This is a deluxe quarter bound edition in a slipcase.	16 Mar. 2023	Hardcover	9780008601409

References