— Ch. 1 · Origins And Private Mythology —
Tolkien's legendarium.
~5 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
In 1914, J. R. R. Tolkien began writing poems and story sketches as a private project to create a mythology for England. He drew maps and invented languages while serving as a British officer during World War I. Much of this early work was written while he was in hospital or on sick leave after returning from France. The earliest story from that period is "The Voyage of Earendel, the Evening Star". Tolkien intended his stories to explain the origins of English history and culture. They also provided necessary historical background for his invented Elvish languages. By 1923, he had almost completed what became known as The Book of Lost Tales. Yet he never finished it, choosing instead to rewrite it repeatedly. His biographer Humphrey Carpenter suggests Tolkien doubted if a publisher would take such a work. He may have been afraid of finishing because he wished to continue his sub-creation.
Evolution Of The Silmarillion
Tolkien first began working on the stories that would become The Silmarillion in 1914. Reading the Old English manuscript Christ I led him to Earendel and the first element of his legendarium. The first complete version of The Silmarillion was the Sketch of the Mythology written in 1926. This sketch was a 28-page synopsis written to explain the background of the story of Túrin to R. W. Reynolds. From the Sketch Tolkien developed a fuller narrative version called Quenta Noldorinwa. The Quenta Noldorinwa was the last version of The Silmarillion that Tolkien completed. He revised and rewrote the legendarium stories for most of his adult life. In 1937, he submitted an incomplete but more fully developed version called Quenta Silmarillion to his publisher George Allen & Unwin. The reader rejected the work as being obscure and too Celtic. The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write a sequel to The Hobbit. He soon turned to the sequel which became The Lord of the Rings.