''The History of The Lord of the Rings'' is a four-volume work by
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was an English academic editor, becoming a French citizen in later life. The son of author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien edited much of his father' ...
published between 1988 and 1992 that documents the process of
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philology, philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was ...
's writing of ''
The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
''. The ''History'' is also numbered as volumes six to nine of ''
The History of Middle-earth
''The History of Middle-earth'' is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 that collect and analyse much of Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over ti ...
'' ("HoME").
Contents
The volumes are:
# (
HoME
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...
6) ''The Return of the Shadow'' (1988)
# (HoME 7) ''The Treason of Isengard'' (1989)
# (HoME 8) ''The War of the Ring'' (1990)
# (HoME 9) ''Sauron Defeated'' (1992)
The first volume of ''The History'' encompasses three initial stages of composition or, as
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) was an English academic editor, becoming a French citizen in later life. The son of author and academic J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien edited much of his father' ...
calls them, "phases", including what Tolkien later called "the crucial chapter" which sets up the central plot, "
The Shadow of the Past".
['']The Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's boo ...
'', 2nd edition, "Foreword". It finishes with the
Fellowship of the Ring entering the
Mines of Moria
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to:
Extraction or digging
*Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging
*Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine
Grammar
*Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun
Mi ...
.
The second volume continues to the meeting with
Théoden king of
Rohan, and includes the invention and evolution of
Lothlórien
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, Lothlórien or Lórien is the fairest realm of the Elves remaining in Middle-earth during the Third Age. It is ruled by Galadriel and Celeborn from their city of tree-houses at Caras Galadhon. The wood-elves ...
and
Galadriel
Galadriel (IPA: Help:IPA, aˈladri.ɛl is a Character (arts), character created by J. R. R. Tolkien in his Middle-earth writings. She appears in ''The Lord of the Rings'', ''The Silmarillion'', and ''Unfinished Tales''.
She ...
; plans for
Frodo and
Sam
Sam, SAM or variants may refer to:
Places
* Sam, Benin
* Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Iran
* Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place
People and fictional ...
's progress to
Mordor
In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional world of Middle-earth, Mordor (pronounced ; from Sindarin ''Black Land'' and Quenya ''Land of Shadow'') is the realm and base of the evil Sauron. It lay to the east of Gondor and the great river Anduin, and to t ...
; the invention and evolution of
Treebeard, the
Ent
Ents are a species of beings in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy world Middle-earth who closely resemble trees; their leader is Treebeard of Fangorn forest. Their name is derived from an Old English word for giant.
The Ents appear in ''The Lord of ...
s, and Fangorn; discussions of the
original map of
Middle-earth at the end of the
Third Age
In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainu (Middle-earth), Ainur entered Arda (Middle-earth), Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of l ...
; and of the evolution of
Cirth
The Cirth (, meaning "runes"; sg. certh ) is a semi‑artificial script, based on real‑life runic alphabets, one of Tolkien's scripts, several scripts invented by J. R. R. Tolkien for the constructed languages he devised and used in his wor ...
in an appendix.
The third volume, ''The War of the Ring'' continues to the opening of the
Black Gate.
The last volume finishes the story and features the rejected ''
Epilogue
An epilogue or epilog (from Greek ἐπίλογος ''epílogos'', "conclusion" from ἐπί ''epi'', "in addition" and λόγος ''logos'', "word") is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature, usually used to bring closure to the w ...
'', in which
Sam
Sam, SAM or variants may refer to:
Places
* Sam, Benin
* Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso
* Sam, Iran
* Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place
People and fictional ...
answers his children's questions. It also includes ''
The Notion Club Papers'' (a
time-travel story related to
Númenor
Númenor, also called Elenna-nórë or Westernesse, is a fictional place in J. R. R. Tolkien's writings. It was the kingdom occupying a large island to the west of Middle-earth, the main setting of Tolkien's writings, and was the greatest civil ...
), a draft of the
Drowning of Anadûnê
''The Silmarillion'' () is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel ...
, and the only extant account of Tolkien's fictional language
Adûnaic
Adûnaic (or Adunaic) ("language of the West") is one of the fictional languages devised by J. R. R. Tolkien for his fantasy works.
One of the languages of Arda in Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium, Adûnaic was spoken by the Men of Númenor d ...
.
Some paperback editions of the fourth volume, retitled ''The End of the Third Age'', include only the materials for ''The Lord of the Rings''.
The original idea was to release ''The History of The Lord of the Rings'' in three volumes, not four. When ''The Treason of Isengard'' was first published in paperback Volume 8 was to be called ''Sauron Defeated'' and was to be the last volume.
Some information concerning the appendices and a soon-abandoned sequel to the novel can also be found in volume 12, ''
The Peoples of Middle-earth
''The Peoples of Middle-earth'' (1996) is the 12th and final volume of ''The History of Middle-earth'', edited by Christopher Tolkien from the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. Some characters (including Anairë, the wife ...
''.
Titles
The titles of the volumes derive from discarded titles for the separate books of ''The Lord of the Rings''. J. R. R. Tolkien conceived the latter as a single volume comprising six "books" plus extensive appendices, but the original publisher split the work into three, publishing two books per volume with the appendices included in the third. The titles proposed by Tolkien for the six books were: Book 1, ''The First Journey'' or ''The Ring Sets Out''; Book 2, ''The Journey of the Nine Companions'' or ''The Ring Goes South''; Book 3, ''The Treason of Isengard''; Book 4, ''The Journey of the Ring-Bearers'' or ''The Ring Goes East''; Book 5, ''The War of the Ring''; and Book 6, ''The End of the Third Age''. The title ''The Return of the Shadow'' was a discarded title for Volume 1.
Three of the titles of the volumes of ''The History of The Lord of the Rings'' were also used as book titles for the seven-volume edition of ''The Lord of the Rings'': ''The Treason of Isengard'' for Book 3, ''The War of the Ring'' for Book 5, and ''The End of the Third Age'' for Book 6.
Tengwar inscriptions
There is an inscription in
Fëanorian characters (
Tengwar
The Tengwar script is an artificial script, one of several scripts created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of ''The Lord of the Rings''.
Within the fictional context of Middle-earth, the Tengwar were invented by the Elf Fëanor, and used fi ...
, an alphabet Tolkien devised for the High-Elves) on the title page of each of the volumes of ''History of Middle-earth'', written by Christopher Tolkien and describing the contents of the book.
Tolkien's creativity
''The History of The Lord of the Rings'' reveals much of the slow, aggregative nature of Tolkien's creativity. As Christopher Tolkien noted of the first two volumes, Tolkien had eventually brought the story up to
Rivendell, but still "without any clear conception of what lay before him".
[Christopher Tolkien (ed.) ''The Treason of Isengard'' (London 1989) p. 18] He also noted how, on the way, his father could get caught up in a "spider's web of argumentation"
[Christopher Tolkien (ed.) ''The Treason of Isengard'' (London 1989) p. 52] – what
Tom Shippey described as getting "bogged down in sometimes strikingly unnecessary webs of minor causation".
Thus (for example) the character eventually known as
Pippin Took was, in a series of rewriting and of deleted adventures, variously known as Odo, Frodo, Folco, Faramond, Peregrin, Hamilcar, Fredegar, and Olo – the figures also being Boffins and Bolgers, as well as Tooks.
[Christopher Tolkien (ed.) ''The Treason of Isengard'' (London 1989) p. 31]
Only with the Breaking of the Fellowship did fluency finally arrive for Tolkien, his son recording how chapters were suddenly "achieved with far greater facility than any previous part of the story".
[Christopher Tolkien (ed.) ''The Treason of Isengard'' (London 1989) p. 410 and compare p. 411-14] Thereafter Tolkien's problem was rather one of selecting between alternative accounts, so as to produce the best effect – two episodes in the "fascinating study"
''Sauron Defeated'' that were eventually deleted being the pardoning of
Saruman
Saruman, also called Saruman the White, is a fictional character of J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings''. He is leader of the Istari, wizards sent to Middle-earth in human form by the godlike Valar to challenge Sauron, t ...
, and an awards ceremony at the book's close.
[ Tom Shippey, '']The Road to Middle-Earth
''The Road to Middle-earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology'' is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then ex ...
'' (London 1992) pp. 282-285
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
*
*
External links
More in-depth information on the individual books in ''The History of The Lord of the Rings'' by J.R.R. Tolkien
{{DEFAULTSORT:History of the Lord of the Rings, The
Middle-earth books
Lord of the Rings, History of
The Lord of the Rings
1988 books
1989 books
1990 books
1992 books
de:The History of The Lord of the Rings