Tolkein's letters

[Thingol1000]

Is "Tolkein's Letters" essentially a suset of HoME, or does the information differ?
I'm thinking about taking the plunge and starting to "ponder" HoME.

[lindil]

The letters came out well before HoME and are an interesting and inspiring commentary one could say on Religion, his writings, and various sundry family and personal matters that creep in.

I personally would recommend that they be read before HoME .

I would read Silm and UT first and also get a good overview of HoME to see if you want to start at the begining [ Aiwendil's favorite method] a reawrding [ I would guess] but difficult exercise or pick out that which seems most interesting.

Some Love Book of Lost Tales 1 and 2; I have read of many who could not get through it.

Especially I would decide if you want to wade through the forests [literally if you count all of the trees that must have gone into all of those millions of pages] of commentary.

Then there is the Lays, a mixed [ in terms of periods written] collection of unfinished verse.

Takes on more significance I think after volume 5.

Then 2 more Silm based volumes 4 contemporaneous with the Hobbit [ as is clear from references to 'Deep Elves and 'Hobgoblins' and the like.

5 - The Silm [ and lost road] as it stood just before the LotR. Also key linguistic material.

6-9 LotR writes and rewrites and notes.

I liked the last one [ get it in HB while you can as the pb deletes all of the Numenorean stuff] the others have gotten mixed reviews.

the last 3 essential to the Silm.
all 3 are excellent and full of gems, like UT.

[Thingol1000]

"the last 3 essential to the Silm.
all 3 are excellent and full of gems, like UT."

Sorry for being dense, which last three were you refering too?

[Maerbenn]

lindil was refering to the last 3 volumes of the History of Middle-earth series. Their titles are:

Morgoth's Ring
The War of the Jewels
The Peoples of Middle-earth