Book –The Return of the Shadow

Book –The Return of the Shadow

(= History of Middle-Earth 6/12) 
(=History of The Lord of the Rings, 1/4)

Author: J.R.R Tolkien, edited and commented by Christopher Tolkien 

Score: 10/10
Year: 1988 (original) ; 1990 (this paperback edition) 

Publisher: Unwin (paperbacks)

ISBN 9780044406693

Pages 497

With this 6th volume in HOME, Christopher Tolkien (=C.T) breaks the tradition of the 5 first volumes, where he had given us his father's earlier short stories in the Middle-Earth Legendarium. This time, he starts a 3-book series, solely centered in the evolution of composition JRR had for the Lord of The Rings chapters, in many stages, alterations, name changes, relations and conceptions for the sequel to The Hobbit that he hadn't initially planed writing. 

C.T only gives those portions which are different from one another, and from the published Fellowship Of the Ring, filling-in the gaps of identical material as comments, thus avoiding necessary repetition. 

He includes extracts from a few letter exchanges his father had with the editors, regarding the evolution of his story, and sometimes his difficulties in inventing further portions of it. Indeed, as mentioned above, he hadn't planed to write a sequel to The Hobbit - which, itself, wasn't intended initially to be part of the Legendarium either, and was supposed to be a stand-alone story, whilst he wanted to focus on The Silmarillion. 

It was only due to the success of The Hobbit, that a sequel was to be made, and thus, JRR started writing, in mid-December 1937, what would become The Lord of the Rings. 

The chapters studied in this current HOME volume 6 are roughly to those of The Fellowship of the ring, book 1 chapter I, A long-expected party, through to book 2, chapter IV, A Journey in the Dark - without any hint of the Lothlórien portions, nor, yet, of the magnitude that the published chapters, despite many of the key elements already arisen in the presented manuscripts, drafts and outlines. 

C.T chose, for this 6th volume, the title that was initially going to be the first of these LOTR volumes : The Return of The Shadow. 

Instead of calling this 6th volume's chapters the same as the ones from the final published form, C.T's choice here is very wisely descriptive, as his father's names and precise content kept changing in conceptions over the years of composition, sometimes with no chapter break, or even name, until later. 

A small table of content : 

Forward (p.1)
The first phase (11-232) 
The second phase (233-308)
The third phase (309-368)
New uncertainties and new projections (369-390)
The story continued (391-467)

Index (468-497)

The first phase, detailed in this book as 12 chapters + one for queries and alterations, corresponds roughly to the birthday party at the beginning, leaving Hobbiton, Gollum, travels through the various landscapes and into Rivendell. 

JRR had started in Mid-December 1937, and reached composition of the 7 or 8th chapter of his story by November 1938, writing for a few weeks, getting stuck for a while, up to 6 months elapsed between some of these passages. 

Although a lot of dialogues would be retained for the final versions of the story, either in the first, second or third edition of the published work, much changes would occur throughout - in geographical details, in naming of characters, and even down to specific conceptions. For example, because this was going to be a sequel to The Hobbit, the first few characters are hobbits, even the precursors to very different ones who would take their place! 

At certain points, we are given notes JRR had, of planned sequences of events to come... and it is noticeable that during composition, his inspiration would tend to bring him to much different details and sequences, with results that would astound the writer himself! 

Thus, in the first phase (Mid-December 1937, to November 1938) he'd composed bits and pieces of the long-expected party, varying most specifically the birthday party recipient, the travel from Hobbiton to the Woody End, telling us of Gollum, Old Maggot's farm, the old forest, Tom Bombadil, the Barrow-wight, Bree, Wheathertop and Rivendell, not attaining the full scope of the final story and its chapters, but with many of the details that would be included, more or less, in the published forms. 

The second phase saw JRR returning to the original first few chapters, revisiting Hobbiton, adding to it ancient history, dangerous delays in departing from Hobbitton, meeting the Black Riders, and finally retouching the travel between Buckland to the Withywindle, thus also altering the order in chapters and either curtailing some of their details, expanding others, changing a few names (for ex, adding Sam Gamgee, but not yet the Frodo Baggins).

The third phase, around November/December 1938, adds a prologue with more background information about Hobbits, before revising the journey to Bree, the stay at Bree's Prancing Poney, and also Weathertop to Rivendell. 

New uncertainties and new projections : here, C.T gives his father's notes, dated August 1939, as well as an exert of a letter, dated 15 September 1939- 12 days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany. From these, it becomes clear that the majority of writing of the third phase had ceased around February 1939 ; that for the most part of this year of 1939, JRR had been unwell and struggled with his writing. We also see that the nature of this struggle was causing him such distress, that he had started to envision radical changes to the story, so radical as to reduce its character numbers and the scope of the story that would have required massive re-writing of all the previously attained chapters ! At the same time as he was severely doubting himself, however, he had also outlined several key moments at the journey's end - without, yet, conceiving the connecting points between the stay at Rivendell, and the tales ending.

The story continued : here we see JRR's writing, enlarging the Hobbits' stay at the house of Elrond, with the addition of The Council, with several shifts in protagonist's presence, but already showing some of the building blocks to the conception of the Fellowship as it will become, although only described as the company at this point - but does include the quest to destroy the ring. 

Then, the chapters for The Ring goes South, from Rivendell, and to The Mines of Moria are told, with a company of seven gone on this quest. The initial conceptions here show many elements that would survive, but would also change, in the published form. 
The manuscripts here break during the Moria chapter, at the discovery of the tomb, and outlines show JRR's intentions from the outset for further development - and all of these elements would survive into the final form as well, which is astounding! 

Precise dates of composition for these expansions aren't possible, only guessed to finish at the end of 1939 ; during the last few chapters, Treebeard emerges, first as an evil Giant who had captured Gandalf, thus delaying his arrival to Hobbiton, thus missing the Hobbits' departure from there ; later, as a benevolent character, though still a giant. 

Although notes show JRR's wish to change Trotter out of his Hobbit nature, the story doesn't deviate from it, as of yet. 

The Return of the Shadow is a must-read if you want to see the ever-folding and shifts in names, geography, and conceptions for this epic tale, whose building underwent many alternations, author's self-doubt and struggles in composition, in a very tortuous fashion, much like the quest told therein. The fact that C.T had given only notes for the differences between manuscripts, and between them and the published results in The Fellowship of the Ring allow a clear reading, that isn't repetitious, and shows all the building blocks in the making, as they unfolded, and as the traces of them allowed Christopher's editorial work to bring forth all of these variants to the light.