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Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age
On a "gut level", I've personally felt this way for some time, although with no special "proof". I am also assuming most people would disagree. Despite the obvious disparities in tone, detail, etc between LotR and Hobbit, I have always felt that the Hobbit was connected with the Legendarium from the very beginning.
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I'd like to see it too - I tend to go with CT & Flieger & count it very much as 'secondary' literature, not quite outside the Legendarium, but not a central part of it either. The idea that it started out as part of the Legendarium is clearly false, as up to that point the Legendarium ended with the fall of Morgoth at the end of what became The First Age (well, unless you want to include the Eriol/Aelfwine stuff about how the tales were transmitted. The Third Age didn't exist as a concept when TH was written.
Now, if he's arguing that Tolkien wanted it to be part of the Legendarium, I'd agree - why else would he have attempted a more 'grown up' version in the 60's?
Of course, it depends how precisely, or loosely, you define 'Legendarium'. I think I could make a 'good case' that Smith is part of the Legendarium (or, as anyone who knows me at all will know, an equally 'good case' that Smith had nothing at all to do with it.)
Anyway, its out next week, so we'll be able to see how 'good' Rateliff's case actually is....