Then all round the Tree, and behind it, through the gaps in the leaves and boughs, a country began to open out and there were glimpses of a forest marching over the land, and of mountains tipped with snow. Strange birds came and settled on the twigs and had to be attended to. It had begun with a leaf caught in the wind, and it became a tree and the tree grew, sending out innumerable branches, and thrusting out the most fantastic roots. It tells of a painter and his great project:

Tolkien’s short story Leaf, by Niggle has an answer. So what is The History of Middle-earth, and what does it contain? J.R.R. Some volumes concern familiar characters such as Frodo and Gandalf, while some feature characters strange and unknown, but all the volumes are supplied with extensive notes and commentary by their conceptor and editor, Christopher Tolkien. Twelve hefty volumes with mysterious titles and the same JRRT monogram are filled with tales, mostly fragmentary, as well as poems, essays, chronologies, maps and charts, and lists of linguistic roots. The History of Middle-earth, published over the space of thirteen years, between 19, can be an intimidating set of books for the casual reader. This series of fascinating books has now been repackaged to complement the distinctive and classic style of the 'black cover' A-format paperbacks of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.David Bratman provides an introduction to Tolkien’s legendarium and a brief summary of each volume in the History of Middle-earth series. The book comes complete with reproductions of the first maps and facsimile pages from the earliest manuscripts. The character of the hobbit called Trotter (afterwards Strider or Aragorn) is developed, and Frodo's companions undergo many changes of name and personality. In The Return of the Shadow (the abandoned title of the first volume of The Lord of the Rings) we see how Bilbo's magic ring evolved into the supremely dangerous Ruling Ring of the Dark Lord and the precise, and astonishingly unforeseen, moment when a Black Rider first rode in to the Shire.

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 first part of The History of The Lord of the Rings, an enthralling account of the writing of the Book of the Century which contains many additional scenes and includes the unpublished Epilogue in its entirety.

The new shadow tolkien