A 'darker' Hobbit

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

And yet the 'official' version we all know & love contains the re-written Riddles in the Dark, which (to my mind after reading the original) doesn't 'fit' as well as the version it replaced. That revision was done purely to bring TH into line with the Gollum of LotR. Clearly Tolkien wasn't attempting this revision as an academic excercise but as a potential replacement text. If it had replaced the edition we now have then its possible that TH as we know it would have been as difficult to get hold of as the 1st ed. Hobbit text is now.

Yes, I know that about 'Riddles in the Dark'. To my mind, it was wrong to revise TH and market the revision as the 'canonical' (oooh, that word again) text. We complain about books that are 'revised' for "political correctness", to make them compatible with the values of subsequent ages, so why cannot one complain that such changes on Tolkien's part represent a faulty niggling? At the very best, I would argue that both texts should exist. Perhaps readers should be given the choice--as some modern children's books do now--about which version to go to?

I wonder, are there other writers who have done this kind of revision/editting in 'second' editions?

The fact that Tolkien never completed the 'darker' version says something about the process, I think. Or maybe just about his writing habits, lol!

EDIT: Sorry, cross-posting with Noggie and others and absolutely must dash now.