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What Are Tolkien’s Posthumously Published Works?

Thanks to the work of Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien, who was his literary executor until his own death in 2020, Tolkien managed to be even more prolific after his death in 1973 than before it, racking up an impressive 35 posthumous publications. These include some of his best known works, such as The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The Father Christmas Letters.

Academic Works And Non-Fiction

Letters of JRR Tolkien (1981), The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays (1983), Tolkien On Fairy-Stories (2014)and A Secret Vice: Tolkien on Invented Languages (2016). These are all collections that provide access to Tolkien’s thoughts on a variety of topics. The Monsters and the Critics is a collection of some of Tolkien’s academic lectures, and Tolkien On Fairy-stories and A Secret Vice provide a detailed look at one of them in particular. Letters of JRR Tolkien does exactly what is says on the tin; it’s a collection of letters Tolkien had saved copies or drafts of, edited by Humphrey Carpenter and Christopher Tolkien. The History of Middle-earth (1983-1996). This twelve-volume set of chunky books edited by Christopher Tolkien collects Tolkien’s various drafts and notes on his Middle-earth stories, presented in order of Middle-earth chronology. It’s a fascinating insight into a writer’s process, and full of discarded gems (did you know, for example, that Aragorn was originally a hobbit called Trotter?). Three novel-length versions of stories from The Silmarillion: The Children of Húrin (2007), Beren and Lúthien (2017), and The Fall of Gondolin (2018). These were all put together and edited by Christopher Tolkien. The material is taken from The Silmarillion, but re-edited and presented as a single novel-length story.

JRR Tolkien sold the motion picture rights to his two commercially successful novels, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, to United Artists in 1969. These were then sold to the Saul Zaentz Company in 1976. When Christopher Tolkien took over as literary executor on Tolkien Senior’s death, he made it clear that he wasn’t interested in selling the rights to any more of his father’s work. The rights to the rest of Tolkien’s works are held by the Tolkien Estate; Christopher Tolkien, along with other members of the family, was a director of the Estate until 2017.

Can The Posthumously Published Works Provide Any Clues To What We Might See In The Rings of Power?

Yes and no. If the situation behind closed doors is more complicated and flexible, then the situation is reversed. If the team have permission to use some elements of the posthumously published works that relate to the Second Age (while continuing to avoid anything relating to First Age) then we might, in fact, see Celebrimbor in love with Galadriel, or another detail form Tolkien’s various drafts published in those books. But perhaps the most fruitful area to look for clues is in Tolkien’s academic work and non-fiction. A dramatic adaptation can’t quote directly from academic works without permission (it wouldn’t come under allowances for ‘fair dealing’, which allow quotations for the purposes of teaching, criticism, reviews, news reporting, and parodies). But they can take the ideas expressed in academic works and apply them to their creative work. Tolkien’s Letters are another grey area. No specific extra material relating to Middle-earth from these Letters can be included if the legal situation remains fixed. However, Tolkien wrote at length about his ideas and inspirations, and that in turn might inspire the showrunners. For example, Tolkien suggested in Letter 211 that the Númenóreans, “are best pictured in (say) Egyptian terms” thanks to their “love of, and power to construct, the gigantic and the massive. And in their great interest in ancestry and tombs”. So, while The Rings of Power could, perhaps, use an Egyptian-style theme in the art and design of Númenor. The fact that the Greek story of Atlantis, told by Plato, was a major inspiration for the story of Númenor is also well known and Tolkien talked about it in Letter 154. So the showrunners could perhaps draw on Greek myth for some of their story elements, or on Greek art and architecture for design elements. Drawing on ancient cultures Tolkien explained were part of his inspiration would not contravene any of the legal restrictions, but would still make use of his posthumously published works in developing this new version of Middle-earth.