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Old 06-12-2016, 08:59 AM   #32
William Cloud Hicklin
Loremaster of Annúminas
 
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William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
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Earlier Akallabęth versions do not include the lines about Sauron taking up the Great Ring, so it would make sense to assume Tolkien's thoughts on the whole questions raised there might also have affected his later rewriting of The Akallabęth.

After all, that letter was written in 1958.
Except that, as near as I can make out from the rather scattergun chapter on Akallabeth in HME XII, that line goes back to the first version of the work (under that title); at least there's no mention in the notes of the line being a later emendation, and versions A and B were in existence prior to 1958 (indeed prior to the publication of LR).

The late rewriting of Ak was chiefly concerned with the Gimilkhad/Pharazon/Miriel affair, an interesting parallel to the creation in the same time frame of the Finwe/Miriel/Indis business (note the repeated name).
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