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The History of Middle-Earth #6-9
The History of Middle-earth (Boxed Set 3): The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring & Sauron Defeated
Third in a series of hardcover box sets celebrating the literary achievement of Christopher Tolkien, featuring double-sided dust jackets—one side featuring artwork by John Howe, and the original graphic treatment on the other. Set 3 contains The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring, and Sauron Defeated (Books 6–9 of The History of Middle-earth).
The Return of the Shadow is the story of the first part of the history of the creation of The Lord of the Rings, a fascinating study of Tolkien’s great masterpiece, from its inception to the end of the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Treason of Isengard continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in the earlier volume, tracing the great expansion of the tale into new lands and peoples south and east of the Misty Mountains: the emergence of Lothlorien, of Ents, of the Riders of Rohan, and of Saruman the White in the fortress of Isengard.
The War of the Ring takes up the story with the Battle of Helm’s Deep and the drowning of Isengard by the Ents; continues with the journey of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum to the Pass of Cirith Ungol; describes the war in Gondor; and ends with the parley between Gandalf and the ambassador of the Dark Lord before the Black Gate of Mordor.
Sauron Defeated completes Christopher Tolkien’s fascinating study of The Lord of the Rings, beginning with Sam’s rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, with many additional scenes and the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety.
Published together for the first time, these four books collect a fascinating period of Christopher Tolkien’s forty-year career devoted to presenting his father J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth, a unique accomplishment that celebrates the greatest invented world in all of fantasy literature.
The Return of the Shadow is the story of the first part of the history of the creation of The Lord of the Rings, a fascinating study of Tolkien’s great masterpiece, from its inception to the end of the first volume, The Fellowship of the Ring.
The Treason of Isengard continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in the earlier volume, tracing the great expansion of the tale into new lands and peoples south and east of the Misty Mountains: the emergence of Lothlorien, of Ents, of the Riders of Rohan, and of Saruman the White in the fortress of Isengard.
The War of the Ring takes up the story with the Battle of Helm’s Deep and the drowning of Isengard by the Ents; continues with the journey of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum to the Pass of Cirith Ungol; describes the war in Gondor; and ends with the parley between Gandalf and the ambassador of the Dark Lord before the Black Gate of Mordor.
Sauron Defeated completes Christopher Tolkien’s fascinating study of The Lord of the Rings, beginning with Sam’s rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, with many additional scenes and the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety.
Published together for the first time, these four books collect a fascinating period of Christopher Tolkien’s forty-year career devoted to presenting his father J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth, a unique accomplishment that celebrates the greatest invented world in all of fantasy literature.
1264 pages, Hardcover
First published July 4, 2024
3 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
J.R.R. Tolkien
797 books77.8k followersJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.
Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.
Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.
Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.
Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.
Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.
Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.
Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.
Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.
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