The Woolf's Den

The Works of J. R. R. Tolkien

"Out of the Black Years come the words that the Smiths of Eregion heard, and knew that they had been betrayed:
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them
One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them."
-- Gandalf the Gray to the Council of Elrond, THE LORD OF THE RINGS

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (nearly always called "J.R.R. Tolkien" or simply "Tolkien") is generally acknowledged to be the father and grandmaster of the entire sub-genre called epic fantasy. But he never set out to be any kind of writer. Tolkien was a language professor at Oxford University in England, and he liked to develop artificial languages in his spare time. Eventually, he began developing peoples who would use those languages, and finally he built a world for those peoples to inhabit, which he called Middle-earth. He wrote a story for his children set in this fictional world, called THE HOBBIT; to his surprise, it was bought by a book publisher and became a smash bestseller. A few years later the publisher asked for a sequel; Tolkien obliged with his greatest work, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This was both a sequel to THE HOBBIT and a bridge between that story and the greater, epic history he had devised for his world. The greater history itself was not published until after his death, and was called THE SILMARILLION.

In the last fifteen years or so, the ever-present demand for more of Tolkien's works has induced his son Christopher to bring out more books based on J.R.R. Tolkien's notes and uncompleted tales of Middle-earth. I haven't bought any of these, mainly because I feel that the original "Saga of Middle-earth" is complete in itself, and I'm simply not interested enough in the backstory to spend the large amounts of money required to get the more recent books. Others obviously feel differently -- after all, somebody is buying all those books.

What I do have includes the entire original Middle-earth series in paperback:

THE SILMARILLION comprises four works: The Ainulindale is Tolkien's Creation Myth, the formation of his world and the spirits which inhabit it. The Valaquenta is a sort of Dramatis Personae of the greater and lesser spirits, which Tolkien calls the Valar and Maiar. Quenta Silmarillion is the story of the First Age of Middle-earth: the origins of the races of Elves, Dwarves, and Men; the creation of the great jewels called the Silmarils; the rise to power of the Dark Lord Morgoth and his theft of the Silmarils; and the Wars of Beleriand fought between Morgoth's armies and those of the Free Peoples: the Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Finally, the Akallabeth tells much of the history of the Second Age of Middle-earth, focusing on the land of Numenor, from which eventually came the Men of the West who founded the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor in Middle-earth.

THE HOBBIT is the story of Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit of the Shire, who joins a group of thirteen dwarves on their journey to the Lonely Mountain, once a rich dwarvish kingdom, now property of an evil, powerful dragon. Along the way he fights spiders, goblins, and other creatures, and finds a magic ring which is much more than it appears to be. He also discovers some unexpected things about himself. This is the original story that Tolkien wrote for his children, that eventually led to THE LORD OF THE RINGS.

THE LORD OF THE RINGS is Tolkien's masterwork. In paperback it's separated into three volumes:

  1. THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING tells of the reappearance of the Dark Lord Sauron the Great, onetime servant of Morgoth, now a Power in his own right. It also tells of Frodo Baggins, nephew and heir to Bilbo the Hobbit, who finds that the magic ring Bilbo left to him is in truth the One Ring of Power, a tool of tremendous power and pure evil, forged long ago by Sauron as part of his grand scheme to entrap the Free Peoples. The Ring also represents the only way to truly defeat Sauron: its power is such that destroying it will also destroy him. Frodo reluctantly volunteers to take the Ring to the place where it was forged, the volcano Orodruin in Sauron's land of Mordor, and there destroy it. For the first part of that journey he's accompanied by eight others: fellow hobbits Sam, Merry, and Pippin; two Men warriors, Aragorn and Boromir; Legolas the Elf; Gimli the Dwarf; and Gandalf the Wizard.
  2. THE TWO TOWERS continues the story from where FELLOWSHIP left off. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli travel into the land of Rohan, following a band of Orcs who captured the other two hobbits, Pippin and Merry, and killed Boromir. The Orcs were sent by the wizard Saruman, who once was a white wizard fighting the Dark Lord, but now seeks to be a Dark Power himself. The three travelers meet up again with Gandalf, and together they play a major role in rallying Rohan to defeat Saruman. Meanwhile, Frodo and his servant Sam gradually work their way southward toward Mordor. On their journey they meet Faramir of Gondor, Boromir's brother, and also the creature called Gollum, who once owned the Ring and is still enslaved by his desire for it.
  3. THE RETURN OF THE KING tells of the final war against Sauron and the end of Frodo's mission in Mordor. Aragorn and his allies defeat a mighty army that Sauron had sent to conquer Gondor, then stage an attack on Mordor which is intended only as a diversion, to give Frodo time to complete his mission. For his part, Sam rescues Frodo from the Enemy, then aids his master on the final journey to Mount Doom, where the Ring can be destroyed.

I keep the paperbacks for ordinary everyday reading. But because I enjoy Middle-earth so much, I also bought special collector's edition hardcovers of both THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The Collector's Edition of THE HOBBIT is a large hardcover bound in green leather, with a slipcase of the same material, printed on long-lasting acid-free paper and including a number of illustrations by Tolkien himself. The Collector's Edition of THE LORD OF THE RINGS is a much thicker hardcover with a red-leather cover and slipcase, also printed on acid-free paper. Both are made to last. Both are also the definitive texts for the two works. While that may sound a bit pretentious, it's true -- extreme care was taken to remove all misprints and typographical errors, so that these editions are as close as possible to what Tolkien originally intended.

I went through a brief period of being intensely interested in everything Tolkien (fortunately, that was before the Unfinished Tales books started coming out), at which time I bought these books about Tolkien and Middle-earth:

THE ATLAS OF MIDDLE-EARTH by Karen Wynn Fonstad is a book full of maps and sketches of the lands, places, and buildings important to Middle-earth.

THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO MIDDLE-EARTH, by Robert Foster, is a huge glossary of everything and everyone in the Middle-earth saga: people, places, events, battles, etc.

THE TOLKIEN READER is a collection of poetry and a couple of short stories written by Tolkien.

SMITH OF WOOTTON MAJOR and FARMER GILES OF HAM -- two short stories in a thin paperback. "Smith of Wootton Major" is a "fairy-story," a story in the old fairy-tale tradition, about a boy who receives a faery-star and finds it opening all sorts of magical paths for him to walk. "Farmer Giles of Ham" is a whimsical story about an overcautious dragon and a farmer who is a most unwilling hero.

TOLKIEN: A BIOGRAPHY, by Humphrey Carpenter, is an excellent, authorized biography of J.R.R. Tolkien.

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