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The Fellowship of the Ring

First edition, with Tolkien's artwork
Author	J. R. R. Tolkien
Language	English
Series	The Lord of the Rings
Genre	Fantasy
Set in	Middle-earth
Publisher	George Allen & Unwin
Publication date	29 July 1954
Publication place	United Kingdom
Pages	423 (first edition)
OCLC	12228601
Dewey Decimal	823.914
LC Class	PR6039.032 L67 1954, vol.1
Followed by	The Two Towers

The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three volumes of the epic novel The Lord of the Rings by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien; it is followed by The Two Towers and The Return of the King. The action takes place in the fictional universe of Middle-earth. The first edition was published on 29 July 1954 in the United Kingdom, and consists of a foreword in which the author discusses the writing of The Lord of the Rings, a prologue titled "Concerning Hobbits, and other matters", and the main narrative divided into two "books".

Scholars and critics have remarked upon the narrative structure of the first part of the volume, which involves comfortable stays at five "Homely Houses", alternating with episodes of danger. Different reasons for the structure have been proposed, including deliberate construction of a cosy world, laboriously groping for a story, or Tolkien's work habits, which involved continual rewriting. The second chapter of each book, "The Shadow of the Past" and "The Council of Elrond", stand out from the rest and have attracted scholarly discussion. They consist not of a narrative of action centred on the Hobbits, but of exceptionally long flashback narrated by the wise old wizard Gandalf. Tolkien called "The Shadow of the Past" the "crucial chapter" as it changes the tone of the book, and lets both the protagonist Frodo and the reader know that there will be a quest to destroy the One Ring. "The Council of Elrond" has been called a tour de force, presenting a culture-clash of the modern with the ancient.

The volume was in the main praised by reviewers and authors including contemporaries of Tolkien W. H. Auden and Naomi Mitchison on its publication, though the critic Edmund Wilson attacked it in a 1956 review entitled "Oo, Those Awful Orcs!".

Title and publication

Tolkien envisioned The Lord of the Rings as a single-volume work divided into six sections he called "books", along with extensive appendices. The original publisher decided to split the work into three parts. Before this, Tolkien had hoped to publish the novel in one volume, possibly combined with The Silmarillion. However, he had proposed titles for the six books that make up the novel. Of the two books that comprise what became The Fellowship of the Ring the first was to be called The First Journey or The Ring Sets Out. The name of the second was The Journey of the Nine Companions or The Ring Goes South. The titles The Ring Sets Out and The Ring Goes South were used in the Millennium edition.

Contents

The volume contains a prologue for readers who have not read The Hobbit, and background information to set the stage for the novel. The body of the volume consists of Book One: "The Ring Sets Out", and Book Two: "The Ring Goes South".

Prologue

The prologue explains that the work is "largely concerned with hobbits", telling of their origins in a migration from the east, their habits such as smoking "pipe-weed", and how their homeland the Shire is organised. It explains how the narrative follows on from The Hobbit, in which the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins finds the One Ring, which had been in the possession of Gollum.

Book I: The Ring Sets Out

Bilbo celebrates his eleventy-first (111th) birthday and leaves the Shire suddenly, passing the Ring to Frodo Baggins, his cousin and heir. Neither Hobbit is aware of the Ring's origin, but Gandalf (a wizard) suspects it is a Ring of Power. Seventeen years later, in "The Shadow of the Past", Gandalf confirms to Frodo that the Ring is the powerfully seductive Ruling Ring lost by the Dark Lord Sauron long ago and counsels Frodo to take it away from the Shire. Gandalf leaves, promising to return by Frodo's birthday and accompany Frodo on his journey, but fails to do so.

Frodo sets out on foot, offering a cover story of moving to a little house in the village of Crickhollow, accompanied by his gardener Sam Gamgee and Frodo's cousin Pippin Took. They are pursued by mysterious Black Riders, but meet a passing group of Elves led by Gildor Inglorion, whose singing to Elbereth wards off the Riders. The Hobbits spend the night with them, then take an evasive shortcut the next day, and arrive at the farm of Farmer Maggot, who takes them to Bucklebury Ferry, where they meet their friend Merry Brandybuck. When they reach the house at Crickhollow, Merry and Pippin reveal they know about the Ring and insist on travelling with Frodo and Sam.

They decide to try to shake off the Black Riders by cutting through the Old Forest. Merry and Pippin are trapped by Old Man Willow, an ancient tree-spirit who controls much of the forest, but are rescued by Tom Bombadil. Leaving the refuge of Tom's house, they get lost in a fog and are caught by a barrow-wight in a barrow on the downs, but Frodo, awakening from the barrow-wight's spell, calls Tom Bombadil, who frees them and equips them with ancient swords from the barrow-wight's hoard.

The Hobbits reach the village of Bree, where they encounter a Ranger named Strider. The innkeeper gives Frodo a letter from Gandalf written three months before which identifies Strider as a friend. Knowing the riders will attempt to seize the party, Strider guides the Hobbits through the wilderness toward the Elven sanctuary of Rivendell. On the way, the group stops at Weathertop, a hill. While there, they are again attacked, though by only five of the nine Black Riders. Their leader wounds Frodo with a cursed blade. After fighting them off, Strider treats Frodo with the herb athelas, and is joined by the Elf Glorfindel, who has been searching for the party. Glorfindel rides with Frodo, now deathly ill, toward Rivendell. The Black Riders pursue Frodo, but when they enter the Ford of Bruinen, they are swept away by flood waters summoned by Elrond.

Book II: The Ring Goes South

Frodo recovers in Rivendell under Elrond's care. Gandalf informs Frodo that the Black Riders are the Nazgûl, Men from ancient times enslaved by Rings of Power to serve Sauron. The Council of Elrond discusses the history of Sauron and the Ring. Strider is revealed to be Aragorn, the heir of Isildur. Isildur had cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand in the battle ending the Second Age, but refused to destroy it, claiming it for himself. The Ring had been lost when Isildur was killed, finally ending up in Bilbo's possession after his meeting with Gollum, described in The Hobbit. Gandalf reports that the chief wizard, Saruman, has betrayed them and is now working to become a power in his own right. Gandalf was captured by him, but escaped, explaining why he had failed to return to meet Frodo as he had promised.

The Council decides that the Ring must be destroyed, but that can be done only by sending it to the fire of Mount Doom in Mordor where it was forged. Frodo takes this task upon himself. Elrond, with the advice of Gandalf, chooses companions for him. The Fellowship of the Ring consists of nine walkers who set out on the quest to destroy the One Ring, in opposition to the nine Black Riders: Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Merry Brandybuck and Pippin Took; Gandalf; the Men Aragorn and Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor; the Elf Legolas; and the Dwarf Gimli. The Fellowship thus represents the Free Peoples of the West – Elves, Dwarves, Men, and Hobbits, assisted by a Wizard.

After a failed attempt to cross the Misty Mountains over the Redhorn Pass, the Fellowship take the perilous path through the Mines of Moria. They learn that Balin, one of the Dwarves who accompanied Bilbo in The Hobbit, and his colony of Dwarves were killed by Orcs. After surviving an attack, they are pursued by Orcs and a Balrog, an ancient fire demon from a prior Age. Gandalf confronts the Balrog, and both of them fall into the abyss of Moria. The others escape and find refuge in the timeless Elven forest of Lothlórien, where they are counselled by the Lady Galadriel. Before they leave, Galadriel tests their loyalty, and gives them individual, magical gifts to help them on their quest. She allows Frodo and Sam to look into her fountain, the Mirror of Galadriel, to see unexplained visions of the past and the present, and possibly unreal glimpses of the future. She refuses to take the Ring Frodo offers her, knowing that it would master her.

Galadriel's husband Celeborn gives the Fellowship boats, elven cloaks, and waybread (Lembas), and they travel down the River Anduin to the hill of Amon Hen. There, Boromir tries to take the Ring from Frodo, but immediately regrets it after Frodo puts on the Ring and disappears. Frodo chooses to go alone to Mordor, but Sam, guessing what he intends, intercepts him as he tries to take a boat across the river, and goes with him.

Structure

The volume contains three types of narrative structure, not found in the rest of the novel, that have attracted the notice of Tolkien scholars and critics. Firstly, the Hobbit protagonists, having set out on their adventures, repeatedly return to "Homely Houses", comfortable and safe places where they recuperate. Secondly, Frodo many times confers and eats with an advisor (not necessarily in a "Homely House"), then makes a clumsy journey in the face of a danger, then encounters unexpected help. Thirdly, the volume switches between action into two exceptionally long chapters of flashback narrative, both critically important for the novel as a whole.

Frodo's five "Homely Houses"

"Groping for a story"

In 1982, the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey noticed the alternation at the start of The Lord of the Rings between moments of dangerous adventure and of recuperation. He proposed four explanations of how Tolkien might naturally have created this sort of material. Shippey suggested firstly that the text gives the impression not of a moment of inspiration followed by a period of careful invention, but of a lengthy period of laborious invention, in search of some kind of inspiration. Tolkien would write and invent characters, places, and events. He would then naturally run into the complications that inevitably arise when different story-elements collide. These then led at last to an inspiration.

Shippey comments that the work gave the impression that Tolkien, despite "much reworking", had been "initially groping for a story and keeping himself going with a sort of travelogue". In search of material, Tolkien indulged in "a sort of self-plagiarism", repurposing and expanding his own earlier inventions from, for instance, the poem "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" which he had written in 1934. This gave him the characters Tom Bombadil, Old Man Willow, and the Barrow-wight. Tolkien's professional knowledge of philology, too, came to his aid, with careful concern for places and placenames, starting in the rather English Shire and then moving outside it. Finally, Tolkien allowed himself a measure of whimsical fun, describing the delicious meals the Hobbit protagonists were able to enjoy when each adventure was over, singing cheerful songs in the form of poems embedded in the text, taking hot baths in Crickhollow, and most pleasurably, constructing humorous dialogue. Shippey comments that "Tolkien found it too easy, and too amusing, just to let the Hobbits chatter on." Both Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis and his publisher Rayner Unwin had to tell him to cut back the Hobbit-talk.

Deliberately constructed

In 2001, in the London Review of Books, Jenny Turner wrote that The Lord of the Rings was suitable for "vulnerable people. You can feel secure inside , no matter what is going on in the nasty world outside. The merest weakling can be the master of this cosy little universe. Even a silly furry little hobbit can see his dreams come true." She cited Shippey's observation ("The hobbits ... have to be dug out ... of no fewer than five 'Homely Houses'") that the quest repeats itself, the chase in the Shire ending with dinner at Farmer Maggot's, the trouble with Old Man Willow ending with hot baths and comfort at Tom Bombadil's, and again safety after adventures in Bree and Rivendell. Turner commented that reading the book is to "find oneself gently rocked between bleakness and luxury, the sublime and the cosy. Scary, safe again. Scary, safe again. Scary, safe again."

Cycles and spirals

In A Tolkien Compass, the scholar of literature David M. Miller describes The Lord of the Rings, like The Hobbit before it, as a "there and back again" tale "with various digressive adventures upon the way". In his view, the setting is thus the road, and the novel is to an extent picaresque, with the crucial distinction that the components are nearly always essential to the plot. The protagonist, Bilbo and then Frodo, experiences one adventure after another, "perhaps learning and maturing as he goes, but encountering each experience essentially afresh." Miller identifies nine such "cycles" in The Fellowship of the Ring.

Each "conference" involves food, so the cycles are of feast and famine. Each danger "is total", since defeat at any point would end the quest. The unexpected helper in each cycle is the advisor in the next cycle. Miller notes that the cycles involving Old Man Willow and the Barrow-wight are anomalous, as the stages do not get the Ring any closer to Rivendell, nor are the hostile characters at all concerned with the Ring. Instead, the "Old Forest, Old Man Willow, Tom as Eldest" (his emphasis) stand outside time, "left over from the First Age"; and like the quest, "time spurts and lags with discernible rhythm".

Shippey describes Miller's analysis as giving "a sense of cycles and spirals" rather than a feeling of linear progression. Shippey suggests that these structures might have been "created in part by Tolkien's work habits, rewriting continually", in many small stages like waves of an incoming tide, "each one rolling a little further up the beach."

Flashback chapters

Scholars have remarked that unlike the rest of The Lord of the Rings (which has an elaborately interlaced structure), all of The Fellowship of the Ring is told as a single thread with Frodo as the protagonist, with the exception of the two long flashback chapters, "The Shadow of the Past" and "The Council of Elrond". Those two chapters combine summaries of the history of the Ring, and quoted dialogue. Further, they are similar in having a character – Gandalf or Elrond – recapitulate the past so as to explain the present situation.

Reception

Of the volume

The poet W. H. Auden wrote a positive review in The New York Times, praising the excitement and saying "Tolkien's invention is unflagging, and, on the primitive level of wanting to know what happens next, The Fellowship of the Ring is at least as good as The Thirty-Nine Steps." However, he said that the light humour in the beginning was "not Tolkien's forte". The scholar Loren Eiseley wrote in the New York Herald Tribune that Tolkien's was "a major creative act", constructing a "great tapestry ... rich with all manner of invention and of symbols, of the peculiar ethnology of a created world". This transcended the "primary or Baconian world" and would "outlive the artist". The literary critic Edmund Wilson however wrote an unflattering review entitled "Oo, Those Awful Orcs!", calling Tolkien's work "juvenile trash", and saying "Dr. Tolkien has little skill at narrative and no instinct for literary form."

The novelist H. A. Blair, writing in the Church Quarterly Review, stated that the work told "poetic truth", appealing to "unconscious archetypes", and that it was a pre-Christian but religious book, with Christian "echoes and emphasis". The Catholic reviewer Christopher Derrick wrote in The Tablet that the book was openly mythical, being a heroic romance. In his view, Tolkien displayed "amazing fertility in creating his world and almost succeeds in devising an elevated diction". Tolkien's friend and fellow-Inkling C. S. Lewis wrote in Time and Tide that the book created a new world of romance and "myth without allegorical pointing", with a powerful sense of history.

The science fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp, in Science Fiction Quarterly, called it "a big, leisurely, colorful, poetical, sorrowful, adventuresome romance", and characterised a Hobbit as "a cross between an English white-collar worker and a rabbit." The novelist Naomi Mitchison praised the work in The New Statesman and Nation, stating that "above all it is a story magnificently told, with every kind of colour and movement and greatness." The Scottish poet Edwin Muir wrote in The Observer that "however one may look at it The Fellowship of the Ring is an extraordinary book", but that although Tolkien "describes a tremendous conflict between good and evil ... his good people are consistently good, his evil figures immovably evil". He commented that if Tolkien had had the "sensibility or the style to express the particular degree of humanity which we find in Spenser and Ariosto and Malory", and his imagination "equal to his invention", "this book might have been a masterpiece".

Of "The Shadow of the Past"

Tolkien called the second chapter, "The Shadow of the Past", "the crucial chapter" of the entire novel; the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey labelled it "the vital chapter". This is because it represents both the moment that Tolkien devised the central plot of the book, and the point in the story where the protagonist, Frodo Baggins, and the reader realise that there will be a quest to destroy the Ring. A sketch of it was among the first parts of the book to be written, early in 1938; later that year, it was one of three chapters of the book that he drafted. In 1944, he returned to the chapter, adding descriptions of Gollum, the Ring, and the hunt for Gollum. The chapter changes the book's tone from the first chapter's light-hearted Hobbit partying, and introduces major themes of the book. These include a sense of the depth of time behind unfolding events, the power of the Ring, and the inter-related questions of providence, free will, and predestination.

Of "The Council of Elrond"

"The Council of Elrond", the second chapter of Book 2, is the longest chapter in that book at some 15,000 words, and critical for explaining the power and threat of the Ring, for introducing the final members of the Fellowship of the Ring, and for defining the planned quest to destroy it. Contrary to the maxim "Show, don't tell", the chapter consists mainly of people talking; the action is, as in "The Shadow of the Past", narrated, largely by the Wizard Gandalf, in flashback. The chapter parallels the far simpler Beorn chapter in The Hobbit, which similarly presents a culture-clash of the modern (mediated by the Hobbit) with the ancient (the heroic Beorn). Shippey calls the chapter "a largely unappreciated tour de force". The Episcopal priest Fleming Rutledge writes that the chapter brings the hidden narrative of Christianity in The Lord of the Rings close to the surface.

Notes

1. Namely, Bag End, the Shire, Rivendell, Bree, and Meduseld
2. The negotiations between Tolkien and Allen & Unwin over the publication of The Lord of the Rings, and the possibility of including The Silmarillion (which was still incomplete), are covered passim in the entries for 1950 through 1952 in Hammond & Scull's Chronology. Several of Tolkien's letters of that period touch on this matter, especially #124, in which Tolkien explicitly desires to have the works published together.
3. To make this possible, Tolkien modified the account of Bilbo's finding of the Ring in The Hobbit from the Ring's innocent status in the first edition.
4. Although Frodo refers to Bilbo as his "uncle", the character is introduced in "A Long-expected Party" as one of Bilbo's younger cousins. The two were in fact first and second cousins, once removed either way (his paternal great-great-uncle's son's son and his maternal great-aunt's son).

References

1. Jane Chance (1980) . "The Lord of the Rings: Tolkien's Epic". Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England'. Macmillan. pp. 97–127. ISBN 0333290348.
2. Hammond & Scull 2006a, pp. 355–393.
3. Carpenter 2023, #123, #124, #125, #126, #131, and #133.
4. Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994). The Lord of the Rings (Millennium ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
5. ^ Shippey 2001, pp. 59–68.
6. ^ Nepveu, Kate (27 March 2009). "LotR re-read: Fellowship II.2, 'The Council of Elrond'". Reactor. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
7. ^ Flieger, Verlyn (2001) . A Question of Time: J.R.R. Tolkien's Road to Faërie. Kent State University Press. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-87338-699-9.
8. ^ Miller 1975, pp. 95–106
9. ^ Shippey 2005, pp. 118–119.
10. ^ Shippey 2001, p. 65.
11. ^ Turner, Jenny (15 November 2001). "Reasons for Liking Tolkien". London Review of Books. 23 (22).
12. ^ Shippey, Tom (2003). "Foreword". A Tolkien Compass (Second ed.). Open Court. pp. vii–xi. ISBN 0-87548-303-8.
13. ^ The Lord of the Rings, 2nd edition (1965), "Foreword".
14. ^ Shippey 2005, p. 154.
15. ^ Shippey 2001, pp. 68–69.
16. Auden, W. H. (31 October 1954). "The Hero Is a Hobbit". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
17. Auden, W. H. (22 January 1956). "At the end of the Quest, Victory". The New York Times. Retrieved 24 August 2018.
18. ^ Eiseley, Loren (9 May 1965). "The Elvish Art of Enchantment". Book Week, Children's Spring Book Festival, New York Herald Tribune. pp. 3, 27.
19. Wilson, Edmund (14 April 1956). "Oo, Those Awful Orcs!". The Nation.
20. Blair, H. A. "Myth or Legend". Church Quarterly Review (156 (January–March 1955)): 121–122.
21. Thompson, George H. (1985). "Early Review of Books by J.R.R. Tolkien". Mythlore. 12 (1 (43) Autumn 1985): 58–63. JSTOR 26810708.
22. Derrick, Christopher. "Talking of Dragons". The Tablet (204 (11 Sept. 1954)): 250.
23. Lewis, C. S. "The Gods Return to Earth". Time and Tide (35 (14 August 1954): 1082–1083.
24. de Camp, L. Sprague. "Book Reviews". Science Fiction Quarterly (3 (Aug. 1955)): 36–40.
25. Mitchison, Naomi. "One Ring to Bind Them". The New Statesman and Nation (48 (18 Sept. 1954)): 331.
26. ^ Muir, Edwin (22 August 1954). "Review: The Fellowship of the Ring". The Observer.
27. ^ Nepveu, Kate (16 December 2008). "LotR re-read: Fellowship I.2, 'The Shadow of the Past'". Reactor. Retrieved 25 January 2022. – also presented as a table in Nepveu, Kate (11 June 2006). "LotR re-read: FotR I.2 revisited". LiveJournal. Retrieved 25 January 2022.
28. Hammond & Scull 2005, p. 80.
29. ^ St. Clair 1995, pp. 145–150.
30. Flieger 2001, p. 21.
31. Shippey 2005, pp. 154–155.
32. Scott 2011, pp. 31–33.
33. Rutledge 2004, pp. 91–114.

Sources

• Carpenter, Humphrey, ed. (2023) . The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien: Revised and Expanded Edition. New York: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-35-865298-4.
• Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2005). The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. HarperCollins. pp. 74–91. ISBN 978-0-007-20907-1.
• Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (2006a). The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide: Chronology. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-261-10381-4.
• Miller, David M. (1975). "Narrative Pattern in The Fellowship of the Ring". In Lobdell, Jared (ed.). A Tolkien Compass (First ed.). Open Court. pp. 95–106. ISBN 0-87548-303-8.
• Rutledge, Fleming (2004). The Battle for Middle-earth: Tolkien's Divine Design in The Lord of the Rings. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0-80282-497-4.
• Scott, Bud (2011). "Tolkien's use of free will versus predestination in The Lord of the Rings". Mallorn (51): 31–33.
• Shippey, Tom (2001). J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0261-10401-3.
• Shippey, Tom (2005) . The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Third ed.). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0.
• St. Clair, Gloriana (1995). "Tolkien as Reviser: A Case Study". Mallorn. 21 (2): 145–150.

External links

• The Fellowship of the Ring at the Internet Book List

v t e J. R. R. Tolkien
Bibliography Letters
Poetry and songs	Songs for the Philologists (1936) "Bagme Bloma" The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953) "A Walking Song" (1954) The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962) "Errantry" "Fastitocalon" "The Sea-Bell" "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" The Road Goes Ever On (1967) Bilbo's Last Song (1974) The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009) The Fall of Arthur (2013) The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024) List of Tolkien's alliterative verse
Fiction	The Hobbit (1937) "Leaf by Niggle" (1947) The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945) Farmer Giles of Ham (1949) The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (1954) The Two Towers (1954) The Return of the King (1955) Tree and Leaf (1964) The Tolkien Reader (1966) Smith of Wootton Major (1967)
Posthumous fiction	The Father Christmas Letters (1976) The Silmarillion (1977) Unfinished Tales (1980) Mr. Bliss (1982) The History of Middle-earth (1983–1996) The Book of Lost Tales The Lays of Beleriand The Shaping of Middle-earth The Lost Road and Other Writings The History of The Lord of the Rings Morgoth's Ring The War of the Jewels The Peoples of Middle-earth Roverandom (1998) The Children of Húrin (2007) The History of The Hobbit (2007) The Story of Kullervo (2015) Beren and Lúthien (2017) The Fall of Gondolin (2018) The Nature of Middle-earth (2021) The Fall of Númenor (2022)
Academic works	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text, 1925) "The Devil's Coach Horses" (1925) "Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad" (1929) "Sigelwara Land" (1932–34) "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale" (1934) "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936) "On Fairy-Stories" (1939) Eucatastrophe "On Translating Beowulf" (1940) Sir Orfeo (1944) Ancrene Wisse (1962) "English and Welsh" (1963) Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer, 1966)
Posthumous academic	Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (translations, 1975) Exodus (1981) Finn and Hengest (1982) The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983) Beowulf and the Critics (2002) Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary with "Sellic Spell" (2014) A Secret Vice (2016)
Scholars	Biographers Humphrey Carpenter J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977, authorized biography) John Garth Tolkien and the Great War The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien Catherine McIlwaine Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth Charles Moseley Christian Stratford Caldecott Matthew T. Dickerson Colin Duriez Peter Kreeft Holly Ordway Joseph Pearce Fleming Rutledge Ralph C. Wood Literary critics Douglas A. Anderson Nicholas Birns Bradley J. Birzer Janice Bogstad & Philip Kaveny Picturing Tolkien David Bratman Janet Brennan Croft Tolkien on Film Patrick Curry Bradford Lee Eden Dimitra Fimi Tolkien, Race and Cultural History Jason Fisher Verlyn Flieger Interrupted Music A Question of Time Splintered Light Michael Foster Nick Groom Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide Randel Helms Thomas Honegger Charles A. Huttar Paul H. Kocher Master of Middle-Earth Stuart D. Lee The Keys of Middle-earth Jared Lobdell A Tolkien Compass John D. Rateliff Robin Anne Reid Brian Rosebury Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon Amy H. Sturgis Anna Vaninskaya Richard C. West Elizabeth Whittingham Rose Zimbardo Understanding The Lord of the Rings Linguists Anthony Appleyard Helge Fauskanger Carl F. Hostetter Tom Loback David Salo Arden R. Smith Allan Turner Medievalists, Classicists Marjorie Burns Perilous Realms Jane Chance Tolkien and the Invention of Myth Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England' Michael D. C. Drout J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia Jonathan Evans Vincent Ferré Gergely Nagy Tom Shippey J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century The Road to Middle-Earth Elizabeth Solopova Sandra Ballif Straubhaar Hamish Williams Tolkien and the Classical World Popular Lin Carter Robert Foster Glen GoodKnight Michael Martinez Charles Noad J. E. A. Tyler
Related	Family Francis Xavier Morgan Influences Artwork Languages constructed by Tolkien Impact of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings Inklings Mythopoeic Society Elvish Linguistic Fellowship Tolkien's impact on fantasy Tolkien and the modernists Tolkien Estate Tolkien fandom Tolkien fan fiction Tolkien Gateway The Tolkien Society Awards Memorials Reception Tolkien research Mythlore Tolkien Studies Works inspired by Tolkien Tolkien (biographical film) Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (album) Language and Human Nature The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

v t e The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien Constructing The Lord of the Rings
About	Volumes The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King Stories "The Shadow of the Past" "The Council of Elrond" "The Scouring of the Shire" "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" Translating List of translations Swedish Reception Impact Literary Fandom Fan fiction Oxonmoot Tolkienmoot Works inspired Tolkien's impact on fantasy
Analysis	Elements Artwork Company of the Ring Family trees Heraldry Languages Black Speech Elvish Quenya Sindarin Khuzdul Maps Poetry A Elbereth Gilthoniel Namárië Song of Eärendil The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late The Road Goes Ever On A Walking Song Proverbs Themes Addiction to power Ancestry as guide to character Architecture Christianity Death and immortality Decline and fall Dreams and visions Economy England Environmentalism Evil Forests Hell Heroism Luck and fate Magic Mental illness Moral dilemma Music Naming of weapons Northern courage Paganism Plants Psychological journeys Quests Race Sexuality Sound and language Time Trees Women Influences Antiquarianism Beowulf Celtic Classical world First World War Norse Medieval Modern sources Modernism A mythology for England Philology Shakespeare Techniques Anachronism Character pairing Editorial framing Frame stories Pseudotranslation Impression of depth Narrative structure Interlacing Storytelling Prose style Ambiguity Epic Pooh
Peoples	Maiar Balrogs Sauron Wizards Gandalf Radagast Saruman Free peoples Dwarves Balin Gimli Elves Galadriel Glorfindel Half-elven Arwen Elrond Legolas Thranduil Ents Treebeard Hobbits Bilbo Frodo Merry Pippin Sam Men Beornings Drúedain Dúnedain Aragorn of Gondor Boromir Denethor Faramir of Rohan Éomer Éowyn Théoden Wormtongue Monsters Barrow-wight Gollum Nazgûl Witch-king of Angmar Old Man Willow Orcs Shelob Trolls Wargs Watcher in the Water Other Eagles Goldberry Tom Bombadil
World	Geography Eriador Bree Old Forest Rivendell The Shire Bag End Gondor Harad Lothlórien Mirkwood Moria Mordor Rohan Isengard Battles Helm's Deep Pelennor Fields Morannon Things Mithril Oliphaunts Palantírs Phial of Galadriel Rings of Power One Ring List of weapons and armour
Related works	The Hobbit The Adventures of Tom Bombadil Errantry Fastitocalon The Sea-Bell The Road Goes Ever On Bilbo's Last Song The Silmarillion Unfinished Tales The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien The History of Middle-earth The Children of Húrin The History of The Hobbit Beren and Lúthien The Fall of Gondolin The Nature of Middle-earth
Adaptations and derivative works Books Bored of the Rings (1969) The Last Ringbearer (1999) Muddle Earth (2003) Illustrations A Map of Middle-earth Pauline Baynes Barbara Remington John Howe Alan Lee Margrethe II of Denmark Ted Nasmith Theatre Fellowship! (2005) Lord of the Rings (2006) Music Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings (1972) Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings (1988) Led Zeppelin "Ramble On" (1969) "Misty Mountain Hop" (1971) "The Battle of Evermore" (1971) Radio The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1955) The Lord of the Rings (NPR, 1979) Hordes of the Things (1980) The Lord of the Rings (BBC, 1981) Der Herr der Ringe (1992) Film Animated The Lord of the Rings (Bakshi, 1978) The Return of the King (Rankin/Bass, 1980) The War of the Rohirrim (Kamiyama, 2024) Peter Jackson series The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) The Two Towers (2002) The Return of the King (2003) Music "Concerning Hobbits" "Into the West" "May It Be" Approach Production Hobbiton Movie Set Peter Jackson's interpretation Picturing Tolkien Tolkien on Film Other Sagan om ringen (1971) Khraniteli (1991) Hobitit (1993) The Rings of Power (2022) music Fan-made The Hunt for Gollum (2009) Born of Hope (2009) Gandalf Big Naturals (2021) Video games Journey to Rivendell Game One Game Two: Shadows of Mordor War in Middle Earth Vol. I (1990) Vol. I (SNES) Riders of Rohan Elendor Vol. II: The Two Towers The Fellowship of the Ring The Two Towers The Return of the King War of the Ring The Third Age Game Boy Advance The Battle for Middle-earth Tactics The Battle for Middle-earth II The Rise of the Witch-king Conquest Aragorn's Quest War in the North Lego The Lord of the Rings Guardians of Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor Shadow of War Gollum Return to Moria The Lord of the Rings Online Mines of Moria Siege of Mirkwood Rise of Isengard Riders of Rohan Helm's Deep Mordor Minas Morgul War of Three Peaks Fate of Gundabad Before the Shadow Tabletop role- playing games Middle-earth Role Playing The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game The One Ring Roleplaying Game Adventures in Middle-earth Board games Middle Earth War of the Ring Gondor: The Siege of Minas Tirith Sauron Lord of the Rings War of the Ring Card games Middle-earth Collectible Card Game The Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game Other games Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game Lego The Lord of the Rings

• 1954 British novels
• 1954 fantasy novels
• Allen & Unwin books
• British novels adapted into films
• British novels adapted into plays
• Middle-earth books
• Sequel novels
• The Lord of the Rings