Trivia / The History of Middle-earth

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Tolkien seems to have acquired the gift of prophecy whilst writing The Notion Club Papers in 1944, given that he gives 1987 as the date of the greatest storm ever to hit England.
• Science Marches On: Tolkien firmly believed that space travel was physically impossible; in The Notion Club Papers, which takes place in 1987, it still hasn't been accomplished. About a decade later, Yuri Gagarin would prove him wrong (However, as of 2023 interstellar travel, at least within a human lifetime, remains not only practically but theoretically impossible within our present understanding of physics).
• What Could Have Been: The point of the History.
• Write What You Know: The Fall of Gondolin from The Book of Lost Tales part 2 is clearly inspired by Tolkien's then-recent experiences in World War I, down to Morgoth's mechanical dragons evoking the early tanks used in the war.
• Write Who You Know: "The Notion Club Papers" is an Affectionate Parody of Tolkien's own experiences with the Inklings—in particular, Michael Ramer resembles C. S. Lewis and Alwin Arundel Lowdham resembles Tolkien himself. Also, Author Avatars Alwin Arundel Lowdham from that story and Alboin Erroll from The Lost Road are both linguists. In the first draft, Loudham (thus spelt) instead was a parody of the Inklings' BRIAN BLESSED-loquacious Hugo Dyson.

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