History of Middle Earth What is Needed?

[R.R.J Tolkien]

So I have ordered morgoth's ring and I am also getting The War of the Jewels. So my question is this, do these books make the book of lost tales meaningless? it seems to me they do. It seems volumes 1-4 of the history would not really be needed as to the history of the sillmarillion. What do you guys think?


Also Not to say reading them is useless, but what is the point of reading the histories of the LOTR volumes 6-9 if Tolkien held unpublished material so low it seems.


“It will probable work out very differently from this plan when it really gets written, as the thing seems to rite itself once I get going as if the truth comes out then, only imperfectly simple in the preliminary sketch.”
-J.R.R Tolkien letters 91


“Every part has been [re]written many times”
-Letters of J.R.R Tolkien 130


Tolkien was a perfectionist in his writings. Nothing hit the press unless revised, reconsidered and then finally published. Even sections that had stayed constant over and over could be drastically changed moments before publication such as the design to minis tirith. C.S Lewis said the inklings had “hoped for a final text of an old work, what they actually got was the first draft of a new one.”


“Whole thing comes out of the wash quite different to any preliminary sketch”
-Letters of J.R.R Tolkien