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The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One (The History of Middle-earth #6)
In this sixth volume of The History of Middle-earth the story reaches The Lord of the Rings. In The Return of the Shadow (an abandoned title for the first volume) Christopher Tolkien describes, with full citation of the earliest notes, outline plans, and narrative drafts, the intricate evolution of The Fellowship of the Ring and the gradual emergence of the conceptions tha...more
Paperback, 512 pages
Published
September 1st 2000
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published 1988)
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Here we have three-ish drafts of The Lord of the Rings up to the exploration of Moria. It is striking how quickly Tolkien shifted tone from the young-reader-ish style of The Hobbit, which surivives in the very first draft of the first chapter, but really no further, to adopt a more mature voice. But it's also interesting to see the evolution of the character who became Strider, at first a mysterious hobbit called Trotter who turns out to be a ...more
Here we have three-ish drafts of The Lord of the Rings up to the exploration of Moria. It is striking how quickly Tolkien shifted tone from the young-reader-ish style of The Hobbit, which surivives in the very first draft of the first chapter, but really no further, to adopt a more mature voice. But it's also interesting to see the evolution of the character who became Strider, at first a mysterious hobbit called Trotter who turns out to be a ...more
I read this one quite a while back. This book is the first of a trilogy where Christopher Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien's son, goes through his father's "first drafts" of the Lord of the Rings and shows how the story developed over a long period of time. Interesting tidbits include how Frodo Baggins was originally named Bingo; Farmer Maggot was a villain; Gandalf originally fought a ringwraith and not a balrog in Moria and "Strider" aka Aragorn was once a shoe-wearing wandering hob...more
So for the longest time I thought these books were just more Middle Earth mythology and/or Christopher Tolkien pimping out his father's name to try to make money off people who will buy anything associated with good ole JRR. But not so! Okay, maybe the part about people who will buy anything associated with Tolkien. But actually this book is awesome. True, it goes into some minutia that not everyone is interested in, but what it's actually about is the writing of Lord of the Rings. For example, ...more
This is volume 6 of something like 10 volumes of Tolkien's drafts of everything he worked on for Middle Earth, published by his son Christopher. Volumes 6-8 tackle the Lord of the Rings. I made it through 6 and 7.
I liked seeing how Tolkien's mind worked, at least at first. As an English teacher and writer, I had a window into another writer's process. Tolkien agonized over the beginning of the story, not really sure what was going to happen, but writing anyway. He rewrote from ...more
I liked seeing how Tolkien's mind worked, at least at first. As an English teacher and writer, I had a window into another writer's process. Tolkien agonized over the beginning of the story, not really sure what was going to happen, but writing anyway. He rewrote from ...more
This is volume one of The History of the Lord of the Rings. I loved this, but I'll tell you right now that this is beyond nerdy, and if you aren't deeply interested in Tolkien and his creative process, it will be beyond boring to you. That said, it's an amazing trove of information on the development of The Lord of the Rings and of Middle-earth in general. Christopher Tolkien provides annotated exerpts from various drafts of The Lord of the Rings, starting with Tolkien's earliest conceptions. It...more
Tolkien fanatics and/or would be novelists will loves this. Everyone else will probably be bored silly.
Even for a Tolkien fanatic like me, the book does get a little dense in places (Middle-Earth geography, dates, some of the footnotes) but those sections are very easy to skip over if you start losing interest.
One interesting side note: the four titles that make up The History of The Lord of the Rings (Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring a...more
Even for a Tolkien fanatic like me, the book does get a little dense in places (Middle-Earth geography, dates, some of the footnotes) but those sections are very easy to skip over if you start losing interest.
One interesting side note: the four titles that make up The History of The Lord of the Rings (Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring a...more
A complicated title and I suppose a rather complicated little series of books. This is the first book of "the writing" of the lord of the rings that Christopher Tolkien published. To elaborate on the severely complicated writing process which occured in developing the lord of the rings "trilogy" Christopher put together this ensemble of drafts that his father wrote.
Here you get all the different drafts that Tolkien wrote in chronological order of their developmen...more
Here you get all the different drafts that Tolkien wrote in chronological order of their developmen...more
Rossrn Nunamaker
is currently reading it
Over the holidays I got the four books that comprise TLOTR and decided to mostly delve into these over the course of the year. I've been jumping from the Return of the Shadow to the Fellowship of the Ring and to some earlier works and appendixes, which has made it very interesting to see both the history and how the story developed.
Definitely not for the casual reader.
Definitely not for the casual reader.
I found this book fascinating. Any writer who thinks he doesn't need to edit his work before publication should read this series of books. This one, The Return of the Shadow, follows Tolkien's writing of The Lord of the Rings from the late '30's through the '40's: Hobbiton through Moria. I really enjoyed this: you don't need to be a Tolkien-fan, just a writer, to appreciate it.
Christopher Tolkien's exhaustive history of his father's writing process during the composition of The Lord of the Rings. The son's textual examination, editorial notes, observations, and speculations about the elder's compositional process are quite interesting. This is sort of a variorum treatment of Tolkien's many stops and starts, drafts and re-writes -- a history of the writing of LOTR. Probably a bit too much of a good thing for all but the most devoted of Tolkien fans.
I l...more
I l...more
Yes. I am a nerd. This is the first in a series of books that chapter-by-chapter painstakingly details Tolkien's writing of LOTR. It has drafts of the chapters, edits, shows when names were changed, etc., etc. It is Hard. Core. And I love it.
As suspected, very scholarly- almost like a textbook. Not for the casual Tolkien fan, but for anyone interested in how JRRT built his world it's pretty fascinating. Now more than halfway to my goal of reading all 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth this year, and it's only April.
I wrote about the experience of reading all 12 of these volumes here: http://soundscryer.com/2011/06/13/christ... (part 1) and here: http://soundscryer.com/2011/12/02/christ... (part 2). Much more detai...more
I wrote about the experience of reading all 12 of these volumes here: http://soundscryer.com/2011/06/13/christ... (part 1) and here: http://soundscryer.com/2011/12/02/christ... (part 2). Much more detai...more
The first five Middle Earth history books just keep repeating every variation of the Silmarillion and Children of Hurin stories. This sixth volume finally gets around to the Hobbits and LOTR. You get to read the adventure all over again, but this time with notes on every false start and correction that Tolkien made along the way. Its almost like hearing the same story being told from several points of view. Some versions have all hobbits, then an elf or dwarf joins the "fellowship"...more
Definitely only for Tolkien geeks.
F TOL hlotr pt.1
Fantasy
Fantasy
good!
I'm not sure if you'd want to read this cover to cover. But with me, I think J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the greatest authors of all time. And I really enjoyed looking into his writing process. If your not verging on Tolkien obsessed you won't have a fun time reading this.
This book goes through the drafts and drafts of each chapter in the lord of the rings.
I'm glad he really did edit and edit the text, I would never have been able to read a series about Bingo Baggins.
This book goes through the drafts and drafts of each chapter in the lord of the rings.
I'm glad he really did edit and edit the text, I would never have been able to read a series about Bingo Baggins.
Jkimballcook Cook
added it
Goes through the drafts of the stories that ultimately became the first part of The Lord of the Rings. Really interesting to see the development of the story and to see where the characters came from. I found especially interesting the idea that Strider was originally conceived of not as a man, but as a hobbit, whose name was Trotter, and that he wore wooden shoes.
It's fascinating to see the intuitive writing process -- how he just plunged in and made so many major changes much later. This really encouraged one of my daughters to start writing and not worry about having to have the plot and characters all perfect and planned out in her head before she could start to write.
This is part of Christopher’s mammoth study of his father’s writing of the Lord of the Rings. I’ve read most of the 12 volumes or so but have retained little. The notable part of Return of the Shadow that I just had to read was a fragment of an aborted sequel to Lord of the Rings.
The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One (The History of Middle-Earth, Vol. 6) by J.R.R. Tolkien (2000)
the entire History of Middle Earth is fascinating reading for Tolkien fans...learning how the story evolved through multiple permutations. It's also an insightful look into the process of writing a masterpiece.
A wonderful glimpse into the development of The Lord of the Rings.
This is the first of an intriguing four-book set that goes into great detail about how Tolkien wrote his epic.
Chuck Spurlock
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE, was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the high fantasy classic works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C. S. Lewis...more
More about J.R.R. Tolkien...
Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959. He was a close friend of C. S. Lewis...more
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