[davem]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

But in many cases the text we had was, quite plainly, wrong. I have not seen the new edition, but I understand a great many of the changes were simple and demonstratable errors - such as "ten miles" vs. "twenty miles". And while some the changes may be questionable - as with "do" vs. "need" - they were made, as far as I know, only when there was some apparent error. The omission of "need" was a mere error.

well, we don't know whether it was an 'error' or a decision to change the wording on Tolkien's part. My point is that CT's justification is not solid enough to make that change. We just don't know why Tolkien inserted 'do' in place of 'need'. All we know is that he did change it.

It's hardly a crime for an author to alter his work in response to a reader's criticism! I do not see how one could blame Christopher for giving his father honest appraisals of his work.

I'm not saying it is a crime - Bb was asking about CT's influence on the writing of LotR. I was just making the point that Tolkien was a 'collaberative' writer, to the extent that he took on board the feelings of others & was influenced by their opinions.

Surely you jest! That sort of change is altogether different from what Christopher has undertaken. To suggest that Christopher is merely trying to "improve" the meaning or that he would even contemplate such a change as "queer" to "strange" seems to me to be doing him a great disservice. On the contrary - his goal is clealy (whatever you may think of the particulars of his analysis) to present the text as it was intended by his father.

Actually, I was jesting (note to self: Use more smileys)

The point is, these changes seem to be motivated by a desire to produce a 'perfect' LotR - but this 'perfect' LotR has never existed. We're not talking about a once perfect version which was lost & must be reconstructed.

Ok, what, exactly, is this 'LotR' which has been copyrighted? Is it the actual text - the words themselves, or is it some kind of Platonic 'ideal' LotR, a 'story'? Does the 'meaning' exist apart from the words, so that the words may be altered to enable that 'meaning' to be communicated more precisely? An author may change his text to his own satisfaction, but if, after that author's death, other's come along (even with the very best of intentions) & produce an 'extensive revision' of it in order to create a new, 'ideal' text, a text which those people believe was what that author really wanted, I think we are entitled to ask if they're right.

Now, I bow to no-one in my respect for what CT has done for us in making available his father's unpublished texts, but so far we haven't had an 'extensive revision' of anything his father published during his lifetime which was intended to replace the existing version. I do think we are entitled to an opinion on what's happened.

To extend this - suppose we found that (actually I think we may have done) Leonardo had painted the Mona Lisa with eyebrows, & knew for a fact that he wanted the portrait to have eyebrows, would we be justified in painting some on?