 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 | 20 October 1955 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Pages | 416 (first edition) |
| OCLC | 933993 |
| 823.914 | |
| LC Class | PR6039.O32 L6 1954, v.3 |
| Preceded by | The Two Towers |
The Return of the King is the third and final volume ofJ. R. R. Tolkien'sThe Lord of the Rings, followingThe Fellowship of the Ring andThe Two Towers. It was published in 1955. The story begins in the kingdom ofGondor, which is soon to be attacked by theDark LordSauron.
The volume was praised by literary figures includingW. H. Auden,Anthony Price, andMichael Straight, but attacked byEdwin Muir, who had praisedThe Fellowship of the Ring.
The chapter "The Scouring of the Shire", and a chapter-length narrative in the appendices, "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", have attracted discussion by scholars and critics. "The Scouring of the Shire" has been called the most important chapter in the whole novel, providing in its internalquest to restorethe Shire a counterbalance to the main quest to destroythe Ring. Commentators have read into it a variety of contemporary political allusions including a satire ofsocialism and a strand ofenvironmentalism. Tolkien described "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" as essential to the plot of the novel. It covers events both before and after the main narrative, and differs from it in not being from thehobbits' point of view. Scholars have discussed the tale's themes including love and death, Tolkien's balance between open Christianity and treating the characters as pagan; and the fact that having the tale as an appendix deprives the main story of much of itslove-interest.
Tolkien conceived ofThe Lord of the Rings as a single work comprising six "books" plus extensive appendices. In 1953, he proposed titles for the six books to his publisher,Rayner Unwin; Book Five was to beThe War of the Ring, while Book Six was to beThe End of the Third Age.[1] These titles were eventually used in the (2000)Millennium edition. Unwin however split the work into three volumes, publishing the fifth and sixth books with the appendices into the final volume with the titleThe Return of the King. Tolkien felt the chosen title revealed too much of the story, and indicated that he preferredThe War of the Ring as a title for the volume.[2]
The Return of the King was in the end published as the third and final volume ofThe Lord of the Rings, on 20 October 1955 in the UK.[3]
Some editions of the volume contain a synopsis for readers who have not read the earlier volumes. The body of the volume consists of books five and six. Book six has variously been titledThe Return of the King (clashing with the title of the third volume) andThe End of the Third Age, though in many editions the Books are untitled. The volume ends with a set of appendices and an index, varying in different editions.
Sauron sends a great army againstGondor.Gandalf arrives atMinas Tirith to warnDenethor of the attack, whileThéoden musters theRohirrim to ride to Gondor's aid. Minas Tirith is besieged; the Lord of the Nazgûl uses a spell-woundbattering ram to destroy the city's gates. Denethor, deceived by Sauron, falls into despair. He burns himself alive on a pyre;Pippin and Gandalf rescue his sonFaramir from the same fate.
Aragorn, accompanied byLegolas,Gimli, and theRangers of the North, takes thePaths of the Dead to recruit the Dead Men of Dunharrow, oathbreakers who are bound by an ancient curse which denies them rest until they fulfil their oath to fight for the King of Gondor. Aragorn unleashes the Army of the Dead on theCorsairs of Umbar invading southern Gondor. With that threat eliminated, Aragorn uses the Corsairs' ships to transport the men of southern Gondor up theAnduin, reaching Minas Tirith just in time to turn the tide of battle. Théoden's nieceÉowyn, who joined the army in disguise, kills the Lord of the Nazgûl with help from Merry; both are wounded. Together, Gondor and Rohan defeat Sauron's army in theBattle of the Pelennor Fields, though at great cost; Théoden is among the dead.
Aragorn enters Minas Tirith and heals Faramir, Éowyn, and Merry. He leads an army of men from Gondor and Rohan, marching through Ithilien to the Black Gate to distract Sauron from his true danger. At theBattle of the Morannon, his army is vastly outnumbered.
Meanwhile, Sam rescues Frodo from the tower of Cirith Ungol. They set out across Mordor. When they reach the edge of theCracks of Doom, Frodo cannot resist the Ring any longer. He claims it for himself and puts it on.Gollum suddenly reappears. He struggles with Frodo and bites off Frodo's finger with the Ring still on it. Celebrating wildly, Gollum loses his footing and falls into the Fire, taking the Ring with him. When the Ring is destroyed, Sauron loses his power forever. All he created collapses, the Nazgûl perish, and his armies are thrown into such disarray that Aragorn's forces emerge victorious.
Aragorn is crowned King of Arnor and Gondor, and wedsArwen, daughter of Elrond. Théoden is buried and Éomer is crowned King of Rohan. His sister Éowyn is engaged to marry Faramir, now Steward of Gondor and Prince of Ithilien. Galadriel, Celeborn, and Gandalf meet and say farewell to Treebeard, and to Aragorn.
The four hobbits make their way back to the Shire, only to find that it has been taken over by men directed by "Sharkey" (whom they later discover to be Saruman). The hobbits, led by Merry, raise a rebellion andscour the Shire of Sharkey's evil. Gríma Wormtongue turns on Saruman and kills him in front ofBag End, Frodo's home. He is killed in turn by hobbit archers. Merry and Pippin are celebrated as heroes. Sam marries Rosie Cotton and uses his gifts from Galadriel to help heal the Shire. But Frodo is still wounded in body and spirit, having borne the Ring for so long. A few years later, in the company of Bilbo and Gandalf, Frodo sails from theGrey Havens west over the Sea to theUndying Lands to find peace.
The appendices outline more details of the history, cultures,genealogies, andlanguages that Tolkien imagined for the peoples of Middle-earth. They provide background details for the narrative, with much detail for Tolkien fans who want to know more about the stories.
Provides extensive background to the larger world of Middle-earth, with brief overviews of the events of the first two Ages of the world, and then more detailed histories of the nations of Men in Gondor and Rohan, as well as a history of the royal Dwarvish line of Durin during the Third Age.
The embedded "Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" tells how it happened that an immortal elf came to marry a man, as told in the main story, which Arwen's ancestorLúthien had done in theFirst Age, giving up her immortality.
Provides a timeline of events throughout the series, and ancient events affecting the narrative, and in lesser detail, it gives the stories' context in the fictional chronology of the larger mythology.
It tells that Sam gives his daughter Elanor the fictionalRed Book of Westmarch – which contains the autobiographical stories of Bilbo's adventures at the opening of the war, and Frodo's role in the full-on War of the Ring, and serves as Tolkien's source forThe Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings (with Tolkien representing himself as a translator, rather than anepic novelist). It says that there was "a tradition" that after handing over the book, Sam crossed west over the sea himself, the last of the ring-bearers; and that some years later, after the deaths of Aragorn and Arwen, Legolas and Gimli also sailed together "over Sea".
Giveshobbit genealogies – not only for Bilbo and Frodo's Baggins family, but also their relations the Tooks and Brandybucks, which connect them to Pippin and Merry.
Describes some of the calendars used by the characters in the story, and explains that the Roman month names in the text are "translations" of the names in the hobbits' calendar. (Tolkien was a linguist, and provided Germanic-sounding names for the hobbit calendar by extrapolating names ofGerman and Old English months forward to what he thought they might have become if all were still used in modern English, asYule andEaster are.)
Describes dwarves' runes and the elvish runes used by the other peoples of Middle-earth; the names of the runes and letters incidentally give some information about dwarvish and elvish languages.
Presented as two sections. In addition to outlines of the various languages in current use during the narrative, and mentioned or seen in the story, it discusses hobbits' names at length. It sorts out names which Tolkienpretended to have translated into English, and names which he said he had left in their original form (since they had no meaning in hobbits' everyday language).
In a review forThe New York Times, the poetW. H. Auden praisedThe Return of the King and foundThe Lord of the Rings a "masterpiece of the genre".[4]The science fiction author and criticAnthony Boucher, in a review forThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, praised the volume as "a masterly narration of tremendous and terrible climactic events", but wrote that Tolkien's prose "seems sometimes to be protracted for its own sake".[5]The authorAnthony Price, reviewing the novel forThe Oxford Mail, called it "more than immense; it is complete", praising Tolkien's Middle-earth as "an absolutely real and unendingly exciting world". He admired the characterization ofTom Bombadil, theEnts, andGollum. In his view, theOne Ring was destroyed "with terrifying logic", though he did not demand that the text end there, noting that the hobbits' return tothe Shire put the larger events in perspective.[6][7]
The novelist and publisherMichael Straight, reviewing the whole ofThe Lord of the Rings inThe New Republic, wrote that the devastated landscapes in the workrecalled Tolkien's First World War experiences, just as the snowstorm in theMisty Mountains recalled his climbing trip in Switzerland, andthe Shire reflected England. He concluded by calling the novel a work of genius.[8][7]
The Scottish poet and criticEdwin Muir, who had praisedThe Fellowship of the Ring in 1954,[9] attacked the completed book in 1955 inThe Sunday Observer as "a boy's adventure story".[10] He compared it to the works ofRider Haggard, and stated that "except for a few old wizards", all the characters "are boys masquerading as adult[s]".[10][7]
Critics have considered the volume's penultimate chapter, "The Scouring of the Shire", the most important chapter in the whole ofThe Lord of the Rings.[12][11][13] Although Tolkien denied that the chapter was anallegory for Britain in theaftermath of World War II, commentators have argued that it can be applied to that period,[14] with clear contemporary political references that include asatire ofsocialism,[15][16][17][18] echoes ofNazism, allusions to the shortages in postwar Britain, and a strand ofenvironmentalism.[19][20] According to Tolkien, the idea of such a chapter was planned from the outset as part of the overallformal structure ofThe Lord of the Rings, though its details were not worked out until much later. The chapter was intended to counterbalance the larger plot, concerning the physical journey to destroy theOne Ring, with a moralquest upon the return home, to purify the Shire and to take personal responsibility. Tolkien considered other identities for the wicked Sharkey before settling on Saruman late in his composition process.[12][11] The chapter has been called one of the most famousanticlimaxes in literature.[21]
Tolkien called "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", in the appendices at the end of the volume, "really essential to the story".[22] In contrast to the non-narrative appendices it extends the main story of the book to cover events both before and after it, one reason it would not fit in the main text.[T 1][23] Tolkien gave another reason for its exclusion, namely that the main text is told from the hobbits' point of view.[T 2] The tale to some extent mirrors the "Tale of Beren and Lúthien", also a story of the love between a Man and an Elf, set in an earlier age ofMiddle-earth. This createsa feeling of historical depth, in what scholars note is an approach similar to that ofDante in hisInferno.[23] Aspects of the tale discussed by scholars include the nature of love and death;[24][25] the balance Tolkien strikes between openChristianity and his treatment of his characters aspagan; and the resulting paradox that although Tolkien was aRoman Catholic and consideredthe book fundamentally Catholic, Middle-earth societies lackreligions of their own.[26] It has been noted also that the tale's relegation to an appendix deprives the main story of much of itslove-interest, shifting the book's emphasis towards action.[27]
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