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Summary
Summary
Inspired by The Hobbit, and begun in 1937, The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy that Tolkien created to provide Âthe necessary background of history for Elvish tongues. From these academic aspirations was born one of the most popular and imaginative works in English literature. The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume in the trilogy, tells of the fateful power of the One Ring
Author Notes
A writer of fantasies, Tolkien, a professor of language and literature at Oxford University, was always intrigued by early English and the imaginative use of language. In his greatest story, the trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954--56), Tolkien invented a language with vocabulary, grammar, syntax, even poetry of its own. Though readers have created various possible allegorical interpretations, Tolkien has said: "It is not about anything but itself. (Certainly it has no allegorical intentions, general, particular or topical, moral, religious or political.)" In The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), Tolkien tells the story of the "master of wood, water, and hill," a jolly teller of tales and singer of songs, one of the multitude of characters in his romance, saga, epic, or fairy tales about his country of the Hobbits.
Tolkien was also a formidable medieval scholar, as evidenced by his work, Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics (1936) and his edition of Anciene Wisse: English Text of the Anciene Riwle.
Among his works published posthumously, are The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún and The Fall of Arthur, which was edited by his son, Christopher.
In 2013, his title, The\Hobbit (Movie Tie-In) made The New York Times Best Seller List.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Guardian Review
Two similar books were published in 1954. The first, in the US, was Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword . The second, in the UK, was JRR Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring . Both these romances drew on familiar Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon sources, but Anderson's was somewhat closer to its origins, a fast-paced doom-drenched tragedy in which human heroism, love and ambition, manipulated by amoral gods, elves and trolls, led inevitably to tragic consequences. When I read it as a boy, Anderson's book impressed me so powerfully that I couldn't then enjoy Tolkien's. Both stories involved magical artefacts of great power whose possession inclined the users to drastic evil. Both described Faery as a world of ancient, pre-human races no longer as powerful as they once were. Both had characters who quoted or invented bits of bardic poetry at the drop of a rusted helm. None the less, I couldn't take Tolkien seriously. Aside from his nursery-room tone, I was unhappy with his infidelities of time, place and character, unconvinced by his female characters and quasi-juvenile protagonists. Anderson set his tale firmly in the early part of the second millennium, in England's Danelaw, when "the White Christ" was threatening the power of all the old gods. He described how, without witch-sight, one might mistake elvish castles and towns for high, bleak mountains and boulder-strewn fells. He made it easy to believe that Yorkshire limestone could be the sparkling escarpments of Alfheim. His women were as sharply drawn and thoroughly motivated as his men. What's more, Anderson's Eddic verse was better. Admittedly, he didn't fill his book with maps, chronologies and glossaries. He had no wise, all-knowing patriarchs. His only longbeard was sinister old Odin, using all his skills to survive. Anderson's human characters belonged to the 11th century and were often brutal, fearful and superstitious. Their lives were short. Their understanding of the future was a little bleak, with the prospect of Ragnarok just around the corner. To be on the safe side, even Christian priests accommodated the Aesir. The Broken Sword opens with a bloody reaving. A land-hungry Dane cruelly destroys a Saxon family. Soon afterwards, riding out under a still, full moon, Earl Imric, ruler of all Britain's elves, encounters a Saxon witch, the sole survivor of the massacre. The witch craves vengeance against the Danes and tells Imric about the conqueror's new-born, unbaptised baby. Knowing the value of humans, who can handle iron, Imric quickly returns home to create, with a captive troll princess, a changeling he can substitute for the baby he calls Scafloc. Imric thus sets off a chain of terrible events foreshadowed by the gift brought to Scafloc's naming ceremony by the Aesir's messenger, Skirnir. The gift is an ancient iron sword broken into two pieces. Ultimately, the sword must be rejoined. This portends no good for men or elves. Meanwhile, the unwitting Danes name their troll-child Valgard. The boys grow up. Merry, graceful and brave, Scafloc is a credit to his adopted people. Equally strong, Valgard is a brooding brute. Scafloc becomes Alfeim's darling. Valgard be-comes a cruel berserker. Seduced by the witch and given greater power by Odin, Valgard soon adds fratricide and patricide to his crimes. With Jacobean relish, Anderson thickens his plot with betrayal, rapine and incest. Our human capacity for love and hate is used to further the ambitions of Aesir and Faery alike. An elvish expedition to Trollheim alerts them to the threat of a troll army massing to destroy Alfheim for ever. Valgard discovers the truth of his own origins and joins the trolls. Fatally, Scafloc falls in love with a woman he rescues from Valgard. Inevitably, as the elves are vanquished, he embarks on a journey to reforge the broken sword. Ultimately all will be defeated by their own passions. Any victories will be bitter. Tolkien's saga reflected the sentiments of sacrifice typical of post-first world war fiction. Anderson's seems to echo the existential mood of the west after the second world war. The Broken Sword has an atmosphere in common with the best 40s noir movies, themselves a reaction to the overblown romantic rhetoric of Nazism. With Mervyn Peake, Henry Treece and even TH White, Anderson influenced a school of epic fantasy fundamentally at odds with inkling reassurances. In 1971, Anderson revised his book and weakened it. Victor Gollancz, which has done such an excellent job with its series of fantasy masterworks, has had the sense to publish the 1954 original. To read it is to understand much of the origins of an alternate fantasy tradition exemplified by such writers as M John Harrison, Philip Pullman and China Mieville, who reject the comforts of the Lamb and Flag and determinedly stick closer to deeper mythic resonances. Michael Moorcock's most recent book is London Bone . To order The Broken Sword for pounds 6.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0870 066 7979. Caption: article-moorcock.1 The Broken Sword opens with a bloody reaving. A land-hungry Dane cruelly destroys a Saxon family. Soon afterwards, riding out under a still, full moon, Earl Imric, ruler of all Britain's elves, encounters a Saxon witch, the sole survivor of the massacre. The witch craves vengeance against the Danes and tells Imric about the conqueror's new-born, unbaptised baby. Knowing the value of humans, who can handle iron, Imric quickly returns home to create, with a captive troll princess, a changeling he can substitute for the baby he calls Scafloc. Imric thus sets off a chain of terrible events foreshadowed by the gift brought to Scafloc's naming ceremony by the Aesir's messenger, Skirnir. The gift is an ancient iron sword broken into two pieces. Ultimately, the sword must be rejoined. This portends no good for men or elves. Meanwhile, the unwitting Danes name their troll-child Valgard. The boys grow up. Merry, graceful and brave, Scafloc is a credit to his adopted people. Equally strong, Valgard is a brooding brute. Scafloc becomes Alfeim's darling. Valgard be-comes a cruel berserker. Seduced by the witch and given greater power by Odin, Valgard soon adds fratricide and patricide to his crimes. - Michael Moorcock.
Library Journal Review
New Line Cinema will be releasing "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy in three separate installments, and Houghton Mifflin Tolkien's U.S. publisher since the release of The Hobbit in 1938 will be re-releasing each volume of the trilogy separately and in a boxed set (ISBN 0-618-15397-7. $22; pap. ISBN 0-618-15396-9. $12). (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| The Lord of the Rings the Fellowship of the Ring Book One |
| Chapter 1 A Long-Expected Party When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton |
| Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return |
| The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say, that the Hill at Bag End was full of tunnels stuffed with treasure |
| And if that was not enough for fame, there was also his prolonged vigour to marvel at |
| Time wore on, but it seemed to have little effect on Mr. Baggins |
| At ninety he was much the same as at fifty |
| At ninety-nine they began to call him well-preserved; but unchanged would have been nearer the mark |
| There were some that shook their heads and thought this was too much of a good thing; it seemed unfair that anyone should possess (apparently) perpetual youth as well as (reputedly) inexhaustible wealth |
| "It will have to be paid for," they said |
| "It isn"t natural, and trouble will come of it!" |
| But so far trouble had not come; and as Mr. Baggins was generous with his money, most people were willing to forgive him his oddities and his good fortune |
| He remained on visiting terms with his relatives (except, of course, the Sackville-Bagginses), and he had many devoted admirers among the hobbits of poor and unimportant families |
| But he had no close friends, until some of his younger cousins began to grow up |
| The eldest of these, and Bilbo"s favourite, was young Frodo Baggins |
| When Bilbo was ninety-nine he adopted Frodo as his heir, and brought him to live at Bag End; and the hopes of the Sackville- Bagginses were finally dashed. Bilbo and Frodo happened to have the same birthday, September 22nd |
| "You had better come and live here, Frodo my lad," said Bilbo one day; "and then we can celebrate our birthday-parties comfortably together." |
| At that time Frodo was still in his tweens, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three |
| Twelve more years passed |
| Each year the Bagginses had given very lively combined birthday-parties at Bag End; but now it was understood that something quite exceptional was being planned for that autumn. Bilbo was going to be eleventy-one, 111, a rather curious number, and a very respectable age for a hobbit (the Old Took himself had only reached 130); and Frodo was going to be thirty- three, 33, an important number: the date of his "coming of age" |
| Tongues began to wag in Hobbiton and Bywater; and rumour of the coming event travelled all over the Shire |
| The history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins became once again the chief topic of conversation; and the older folk suddenly found their reminiscences in welcome demand |
| No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer |
| He held forth at The Ivy Bush, a small inn on the Bywater road; and he spoke with some authority, for he had tended the garden at Bag End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same job before that. Now that he was himself growing old and stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his youngest son, Sam Gamgee |
| Both father and son were on very friendly terms with Bilbo and Frodo |
| They lived on the Hill itself, in Number 3 Bagshot Row just below Bag End |
| "A very nice well-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr. Bilbo, as I"ve always said," the Gaffer declared |
| With perfect truth: for Bilbo was very poli |
