 think Tolkien was a brilliant reviser and that he'll write something and then he'll think about it and he'll say that would be so much better if Elrond had a daughter and he'll go back and add a daughter whereas most people said well next time I write a story about someone who has a daughter he'll work over a piece as many times as it as long as he keeps getting good ideas that he thinks will improve it he'll go back and revise it again he'll go back and revise it again. C.S. Lewis once said it was almost impossible to get Tolkien to publish something because he would say oh I just need to go through and make a few changes which usually meant he was going to start rewriting it over again. If you look at Tolkien's original drafts they're often not nearly as good as the final book. Farmer Jaws of Ham is a great example. Nice short simple little story followed by an expanded version which is better followed by a version twice the size which is really good followed by another version Tinker just a little which just right that point he stops he gets it published. Aneudotally what was what was the condition of the manuscripts when I arrived how did they change what condition are they in now when they arrived they were Tolkien had promised as part of the deal he would go through all the manuscripts and annotate them date them explain how all of them were related to each other this is why it took two years for Marquette to get the materials after the point when they started it because he went and he started and oh he got an idea and he had to work on something else there's one page that I'm certain that Tolkien actually annotated because there's a page of manuscript on the top of which Tolkien wrote only surviving page of the first draft of the Hobbit which didn't go beyond this first chapter what he didn't know is two other pages of it had come to Marquette and that page he didn't send to Marquette the page you wrote that on he kept he never got around to sending that it finally came when Christopher Tolkien hand-delivered it in 1987 the oddest thing that I've ever come across is a doodle of a little circle with two eyes and underneath Elrond the magnificent a lot Tolkien was writing during World War two when paper was really scarce and Tolkien wasn't like C.S. Lewis he didn't think through the whole draft and then just copy it on paper you know he found out what he had to say by writing it and rewriting it and this took lots and lots of paper one thing Christopher Tolkien discovered when he was here in 87 we would never have guessed there's lots of pages that are on the back of blue books you know students wrote essays if there was half a page Tolkien would tear that page out and he would write on the other half a page what Christopher Tolkien discovered he looked at some of those they have comments where you know Tolkien is saying this person knows nothing about the Battle of Maldon or you know the tense is completely wrong in this translation etc Christopher Tolkien looked at them and said oh that's not my father's handwriting that great that little comment is by Neville Coghill that little comment is by C.S. Lewis so he was not only tearing scraps of paper out of his own students he was getting friends just to give him pieces of and I would never have known that except you know Christopher Tolkien went and looked at the collection he loved the person oh that's you know that's Neville Coghill I don't think any of us would have noticed those little remarks in the margin as being anything other than the original student of Tolkien himself the doodles are the other really interesting doodles is sometimes he would practice calligraphy with the radio on and so there's these little snips you know like Dung Kirk and then you know lines in Elvish and he's hearing phrases and writing it is very very careful calligraphy and those are kind of random and kind of interesting and what so wise while he makes this little insulting comment about Joyce or Elliot or someone like that that it would be a great project just to go through the whole thing and report just catalog what's on the back and most of it's like yes this student didn't know nothing about Beowulf but sometimes there's an interesting little comment an interesting little phrase that would it be worth the trouble of digging them all out I mentioned earlier today about Tolkien sat down at one point and decided to rewrite the Hobbit in the style of the Lord of the Rings this is what's called the 1960 Hobbit none of us knew it existed until Christopher Tolkien came to Marquette in 1987 and decided he would read part of it to us wonderful reading what happened is Tolkien writes the Hobbit it's a standalone book there is no Lord of the Rings at this point it's successful his publishers say why don't you write a series you know like Dr. Doolittle there's the first book second third book why don't you do a whole series of books and talk to the brothers really not much of a sequel to he lived happily ever after to the end of his days short book maybe I can tell a story about another Hobbit and so he starts in on the new Hobbit and that becomes the Lord of the Rings the Lord of the Rings turns out not to be very like the Hobbit once he gets going on it becomes much longer much more grim much more intricate really fascinating book he gets to the end of the Lord of the Rings and it's like it's kind of hard to make the Hobbit story work with the Lord of the Rings because in the Hobbit the original version of the Hobbit Gollum makes a deal with Bilbo you know if I win I eat you if you win I'll give you a special prize Bilbo wins Gollum says now I've got to give you the prize but he can't find the ring so he says I don't know what to do you've won fair and square and I can't give you the reward Bilbo says well show me the way out will be square so Gollum goes and shows Bilbo the way out and they basically it you know they parties they know down that way look out for the goblins and they leave that's the story of the original Hobbit that's what was published in 1937 as Tolkien's right the Lord of the Rings is this just Gollum is just not going to let him walk out of there so he wrote a brand new version of the of that chapter in which Gollum is treacherous and evil and he tries to kill Bilbo he tries to ambush him and he sent it to his publishers and said if we do another edition of the Hobbit if we publish this chapter it would make the Lord of the Rings a lot easier and the Hobbit Lord of the Rings are both better off so the Lord of the Rings influences the Hobbit after the Lord of the Rings comes out about 1960 not long after while he's still working out actually Tolkien starts saying you know the story would have been very different if Gandalf had been describing the opening chapter of the Lord of the Hobbit or Thorin had been describing the opening chapter so he sits down in the appendix you'll remember in appendix A of the Lord of the Rings there's a little passage where it talks about after Aragorn was crowned they told a lot of stories and Gandalf told them a lot of stories well Tolkien wrote down the account of what Gandalf thought the first chapter of the Hobbit was like from his point of view that's called the quest of Erebor it's published in unfinished tales and it's wonderful about 1960 Tolkien started thinking I should rewrite the Hobbit I should make the Hobbit just like the Lord of the Rings the two books will go together so he sits down and starts rewriting the opening chapter so it will be just like the Lord of the Rings he writes the opening chapter the second chapter gets as far as the arrival at Rivendell he shows it to someone who says this is great but that's not the Hobbit and so he thinks about he says you're right the Hobbit is different from Lord of the Rings it's not it shouldn't be co-opted into the Lord of the Rings so he abandons it the 1960 Hobbit was published for the first time in my book I was really lucky to get that in there it also has both versions of the Golem chapter it doesn't have the quest of Erebor but that's readily available in unfinished tales and the new edition of Douglas Anderson's The Annotated Hobbit the second edition also includes a different draft of the quest of Erebor there are at least three it being Tolkien there's multiple drafts of everything so that's what the 1960 Hobbit is it's when Tolkien decides the Hobbit should become just like the Lord of the Rings and he says no too many other things to do going to leave the Hobbit on its own I arrived the first thing I did was transcribe all of Mr. Bliss because Mr. Bliss was unpublished there was no way to read Mr. Bliss other than to come to Milwaukee and go to the archives and read it so I transcribed it so I know Mr. Bliss pretty well I looked at the early version of Farmer Jaws I transcribed some of that I had this ambition I took a copy paperback copy of the Lord of the Rings I looked at the manuscripts I started entering every change in it so that I would have like a very orium and I had to give it up there's the manuscripts are so different that was even before the material that Christopher Tolkien brought which was a very early drafts of the first chapters so I looked at the material there's probably still pages there I never got to because I wasn't systematic I didn't start with the first page of folder one and go all the way through I would research a part then I would research a different part hundreds of hours I don't know whenever I could get away from I was teaching I was taking courses I was really busy TAs are really really busy grad students are really busy but anytime I had time I'd go over there and spend an hour spend two hours there couldn't have been many weeks that I didn't go and spend a few hours there and it was wonderful thank you so much for coming