J. R. R. Tolkien usedframe stories throughout hisMiddle-earth writings, especiallyhis legendarium, to make the worksresemble a genuine mythology written and edited by many hands over a long period of time. He described in detail how his fictional characters wrote their books and transmitted them to others, and showed how later in-universe editors annotated the material.

The frame story for both Tolkien's novels published in his lifetime,The Hobbit andThe Lord of the Rings, is that the eponymous HobbitBilbo Baggins wrote a memoir of his adventures, which becameThe Red Book of Westmarch. This was continued by his relativeFrodo Baggins, who carried theOne Ring toMount Doom, and then by Frodo's servant,Samwise Gamgee, who had accompanied him.The Lord of the Rings contains an appendix, "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", which, being written by Men rather than Hobbits, has its own frame story.

The legendarium, the body of writing behind the posthumously-publishedThe Silmarillion, has a frame story that evolved over Tolkien's long writing career. It centred on a character,Aelfwine the mariner, whose name, like those of several later reincarnations of the frame-characters, means "Elf-friend". He sails the seas and is shipwrecked on an island where theElves narrate their tales to him. The legendarium containstwo incomplete time-travel novels,The Lost Road andThe Notion Club Papers, which are framed by various "Elf-friend" characters who by dream or other means visit earlier ages, step by step all the way back to the ancient,Atlantis-likelost civilisation ofNúmenor.

Tolkien was influenced byWilliam Morris's use of a frame story in his 1868–1870 epic poemThe Earthly Paradise, in which mariners of Norway set sail for the mythical place, where they hear and narrate tales, one of them of a wanderer much likeEärendil. Tolkien was familiar, too, with the CelticImram sea-voyage legends such as those ofSt Brendan, who returned to tell many stories, and published a poem called "Imram" from his legendarium.

Eventually, Tolkien gave the book not just a frame story, butan elaborate editorial frame of prologue and appendices that together implythe survival of a manuscript through the thousands of years since the end of theThird Age, along with the editing and annotation of that manuscript by many hands. This placed Tolkien in the congenial role for aphilologist ofhaving to "translate" the ancient languages used in the manuscript.

A frame story is a tale that encloses or frames the main story or set of stories. For example, inMary Shelley's 1818 novelFrankenstein, the main story is framed by a fictional correspondence between an explorer and his sister;^[2] inOne Thousand and One Nights, compiled during theIslamic Golden Age, the many stories are framed by a tale thatScheherazade keeps the king from executing her by telling him a story every night, each time not completing the story by daybreak so that he spares her life for just one more day.^[1]

In the last chapter ofThe Hobbit, Tolkien writes of the protagonist and titular characterBilbo Baggins returning from the journey to theLonely Mountain and composing his memoirs, to record the events described in the book. Bilbo thinks of calling his workThere and Back Again, A Hobbit's Holiday.^{[T 1]} Tolkien's full name for the novel is indeedThe Hobbit or There and Back Again.^{[T 2]} In the first chapter ofThe Lord of the Rings, Bilbo'sThere and Back Again tale is said to be written in his red leather-bounddiary.^{[T 3]}While living inRivendell, Bilbo expands his memoirs into a record of the events ofThe Lord of the Rings, including the exploits of his kinsmanFrodo Baggins and others. He leaves the material for Frodo to complete and organize.^{[T 4]} Frodo writes down the bulk of the final work, using Bilbo's diary and "many pages of loose notes". At the close of Tolkien's main narrative, the work is almost complete, and Frodo leaves the task to his gardener and close friend and heirSamwise Gamgee.^{[T 5]}

The Tolkien scholarVerlyn Flieger writes that Tolkien, seeking to present his Middle-earth writings as a credible mythology, needed to create a "credible book tradition". He went to "elaborate lengths" to achieve this, including many mentions of Bilbo's "diary" and "Translations from the Elvish", supposedly created during his years of retirement, complete with "the masses of notes and paper in his room at Rivendell".^[3] She observes that the simulated tradition is already in evidence,hidden in plain sight, inThe Hobbit, whosedust jacket is "surreptitiously"ornamented by Tolkien with ancient-lookingrunes, which read:^[3]

The Hobbit or There and Back Again, being the record of a year's journey made by Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton; compiled from his memoirs by JRR Tolkien, and published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd.^[3]

Flieger notes thatThe Hobbit's frame story is rather fragile, since the book's narrator often speaks in a voice that cannot be Bilbo's.^[3] InThe Lord of the Rings, on the other hand, Tolkien carefully embedded the frame story in the text, from the earliest drafts. He has Bilbo talk in theCouncil of Elrond about getting on with his book, saying that he was "just writing an ending for it", but realising that it now needed "several more chapters" because of Frodo's adventures on the way to Rivendell.^{[T 6][3]} She comments that Tolkien "went so far as to draw up a title page" for his Red Book, showing Bilbo's "largely unsatisfactory tries" at finding an appropriate title.^[3] The final title is Frodo's:^{[T 5]}

Flieger writes that at the time of the release of the first edition ofThe Lord of the Rings in 1954, Tolkien had not yet included that text in the Red Book; its prologue spoke ofThe Hobbit as containing "a selection from theRed Book of Westmarch".^[3] Tolkien went on developing the frame story, and in the second edition he added a "Note on the Shire Records" to the prologue. It explains, inthe voice of the fictional editor, that the "account" (the main text ofThe Lord of the Rings) was taken mainly from theRed Book of Westmarch, stating that this was begun as "Bilbo's private diary", continued by Frodo with an account of the War of the Ring, and extended by Sam.^[3]

Near the end of the main text, Tolkien has Frodo give the Red Book to Sam. Flieger notes that, seeing it, Sam says "Why, you have nearly finished it, Mr. Frodo!", and describes Frodo's answer as "both definitive and revealing":"'I have quite finished, Sam', said Frodo. 'The last pages are for you.'"^[3] She comments that where Sam says "it", meaning the book, Frodo does not, leaving open whether he means the book or his life in Middle-earth as he has recorded in the book.^[3] She briefly considers what Sam might have been supposed to have added, if the suggestion is to be taken at all seriously. She points out that they could have been books 4 and 6 ofThe Lord of the Rings, where Frodo is never seen without Sam, but there are times when Sam is alert while Frodo is absent or unconscious. Further, no other observer was present, especially atMount Doom where Sam is the only person who sees Gollum fighting an invisible Frodo forthe Ring.^[3]

Flieger observes that on the stairs of the dangerous pass ofCirith Ungol, Frodo and Sam talk about what a story is. Sam says "We're in one, of course, but I mean put into words, you know ... read out of a great big book with red and black letters". Frodo answers "Why Sam ... to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story were already written". Flieger writes that this is "the mostself-referential andpost-modern moment in the entire book",^[3] since it constitutes the book itself looking both back at its own creation, and forward to the printed book that the reader is holding. She compares this witha passage that Tolkien certainly knew, lines 867–874 ofBeowulf, where thescop who is reciting the poem sings of a poet singing about Beowulf. In her view, Sam's "put into words, you know" is a deliberate echo ofBeowulf's "glorying in words".^[3]

Peter Jackson chose to continue the use of the frame story of Bilbo's memoirs in his film adaptations. In his 2001The Fellowship of the Ring, Bilbo'sThere and Back Again provided the basis for thevoiceover for the scene "Concerning Hobbits"; this was greatly extended in the Special Extended Edition. The memoirs' title became the working title for the third of Jackson'sThe Hobbit Films in August 2012,^[5] but in 2014 he changed it toThe Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.^[6]

The Lord of the Rings contains a second frame story, for the appendix "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen". The tale describes how the heroAragorn came to marry an immortal Elf-woman,Arwen. Tolkien stated that it was "really essential" to the work. Its frame story is that the tale was written byFaramir and Éowyn's grandson Barahir after Aragorn's death, and that an abbreviated version of the tale was included in a copy of theThain's Book made by Findegil. This in turn was annotated, corrected, and extended inMinas Tirith.^{[T 7]} Thenarrative voice and the story's point of view are examined by the scholar Christine Barkley, who considers the main part of the tale to have been narrated by Aragorn.^[7][a]

Tolkien included a mass ofparatexts – prefaces, notes, and appendices of all kinds – inThe Lord of the Rings, and some inThe Hobbit. The Tolkien scholarJanet Brennan Croft comments that these "resonat[e]" or "collaborat[e]" with the main text to amplify its effect, making it more believable. Several of these contribute to his frame stories, which place him not as author but as the last of a line ofphilological editors of ancient documents originally written by characters such as the HobbitsBilbo andFrodo Baggins. These paratexts thus support afound manuscript conceit, which in turn supports the frame story.^[9] The Tolkien scholar Giuseppe Pezzini writes that the "meta-textual frame [ofThe Lord of the Rings] ... is duly harmonised in the text through the use of formal features; the appendixes are indeed full of scribal glosses, later notes, and editorial references that are meant to match the elaborate textual history detailed in the Note on the Shire Records."^[10] For example:

Tolkien thought ofhis legendarium, the large body of documents of many kinds that lies behind the text of the 1977 bookThe Silmarillion, as a presented collection, with a frame story that changed over the years, first with an Ælfwine-type character who translates the "Golden Book" of the sages Rumil or Pengoloð; later, having the HobbitBilbo Baggins collect the stories into theRed Book of Westmarch, translating mythological Elvish documents inRivendell.^[11]

InThe Book of Lost Tales, begun early in Tolkien's writing career, the character who becomes Ælfwine the mariner is named Ottor Wǽfre (calledEriol by the Elves), and his tale serves as frame story for the tales of the Elves. He sets out from what is todayHeligoland on a voyage with a small crew, but is the lone survivor after his ship crashes upon the rocks near an island. The island is inhabited by an old man who gives him directions to Eressëa. After he finds the island, the Elves host him in theCottage of Lost Play and narrate their tales to him. He afterwards learns from them that the old man he met was actually "Ylmir". He is taught most of the tales by the old Elf Rúmil, Eressëa's lore master.^{[T 8]}

In these early versions,Tol Eressea is seen as the island of Britain. He earned the name Ælfwine from the Elves; his first wife, Cwén, was the mother ofHengest and Horsa; his second wife, Naimi, bore him a third son,Heorrenda, a great poet ofhalf-Elven descent, who in the fiction would go on to write the Old English epic poemBeowulf. This weaves togethera mythology for England, connecting England's geography, poetry and mythology with the Legendarium as a plausibly reconstructed (though probably untrue) prehistory.^[12]

The first title forThe Book of Lost Tales, begun in 1917, framed its stories as a transmitted collection:

In the fiction, a series of named Elves^[b] told the "lost tales" to Eriol/Ælfwine. He transmitted them via Heorrenda's written book.^[13] As edited byChristopher Tolkien, the 1983Book of Lost Tales, Volume 1 is inscribed:

Tolkien attempted to writetwo time-travel novels, but never completed either of them. Both can be seen as frame stories for his legendarium, as the father-son pair of time travellers in each of the novels successively approach the ancient period of the downfall ofNúmenor. He beganThe Lost Road in 1937, writing four chapters before setting it aside.^[14] He returned to the theme withThe Notion Club Papers, which he began and abandoned between 1944 and 1946.^[14] In its frame story, a Mr. Green finds documents in sacks of waste paper at Oxford in 2012. These documents, the Notion Club Papers of the title, are the incomplete notes of meetings of the Notion Club; these meetings are said to have occurred in the 1980s. During these meetings, Alwin Arundel Lowdham discusses hislucid dreams about Númenor, alost civilisation connected withAtlantis and with Tolkien'sMiddle-earth. Through these dreams, he "discovers" much about the Númenor story and thelanguages of Middle-earth (notablyQuenya,Sindarin, andAdûnaic). While not finished, at the end of the given story it becomes clear that Alwin Lowdham himself is a reincarnation of sorts ofElendil.^[15] Tolkien selected the names of these characters (in both novels) to indicate their affinity: Alwin is another form of the Old English name "Aelfwine", meaning "Elf-friend", while theQuenya nameElendil can carry the same meaning.^[16]

Anna Vaninskaya, inBlackwell's 2014A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien, notes that Tolkien was directly influenced byWilliam Morris. She suggests that the legendarium's frame story, starting from the travels of Ælfwine the mariner, was modelled on Morris's 1868–1870 epic poemThe Earthly Paradise, whose frame story is that "mariners of Norway, having ... heard of the Earthly Paradise, set sail to find it".^[19] She notes that Morris's "wanderers" reach "A nameless city in a distant sea / White as the changing walls of faërie", where they hear and narrate legends including "The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon"; Tolkien'sLost Tales II contains one of the legendarium's foundation-poems that similarly describes the "Wanderer" Earendel (forerunner of Tolkien'sEärendil), who sails "West of the Moon, east of the Sun".^[19][c]

Tolkien's biographerJohn Garth, in the same volume, writes that in 1920, Tolkien revised his frame story so that the Lonely Isle was no longer equated with England, and Eriol became the Anglo-Saxon Ælfwine; this began the process of revising the legendarium that continued throughout his life. He notes that in 1945 and 1946, Tolkien addedThe Notion Club Papers, visiting ancient Númenor bytravelling in time rather than by ship, but with a poem about St Brendan'sImram sea-voyages that he revised as the 1955 "Imram".^[18][20]

The Tolkien scholarJane Chance describes the 1920 version of the Ælfwine story as "Tolkien's complicated penultimate version of the pseudo-historical and Anglo-Saxon frame-story", calling it important to any understanding of "Middle-earth's kernel mythology".^[21]

Dale Nelson, inThe J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, writes that Tolkien and his friendC. S. Lewis admiredDavid Lindsay'sA Voyage to Arcturus, but that Tolkien "regretted" thescience fiction style frame story machinery that Lindsay had used – the back-rays and the crystal torpedo ship; he notes that inThe Notion Club Papers, Tolkien makes one of the protagonists, Guildford, criticise those kinds of "contraptions".^[22]

InThe Lord of the Rings, Tolkien ultimately went much further than simply embedding a frame story in the text, though he did that too. Instead, he constructed an elaborate editorial frame, including a prologue and an extensive set of appendices, all designed to give the impression that the text had not only survived the thousands of years since the end of theThird Age, but had in that long period been annotated and edited by many hands. The scholar Vladimir Brljak argues that this framework, with its pseudo-editorial, pseudo-philological, andpseudo-translational aspects, "is both the cornerstone and crowning achievement of Tolkien's mature literary work".^[23]

• Flieger, Verlyn (1983).Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. Grand Rapids, Michigan:William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.ISBN 978-0-8028-1955-0.
• Flieger, Verlyn (2001).A Question of Time: J. R. R. Tolkien's Road to Faėriė.Kent State University Press.ISBN 978-0-87338-699-9.
• Flieger, Verlyn (2005).Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology.Kent State University Press.
• Lee, Stuart D., ed. (2020) [2014].A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien.Wiley Blackwell.ISBN 978-1119656029.
• Liuzza, Roy M. (2013) [2000].Beowulf: facing page translation (2nd ed.). Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.ISBN 978-1554811137.
• Shippey, Tom (2005) [1982].The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology (Third ed.).HarperCollins.ISBN 978-0-261-10275-0.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1937).Douglas A. Anderson (ed.).The Annotated Hobbit. Boston:Houghton Mifflin (published 2002).ISBN 978-0-618-13470-0.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954a).The Fellowship of the Ring.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 9552942.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1955).The Return of the King.The Lord of the Rings. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.OCLC 519647821.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1984).Christopher Tolkien (ed.).The Book of Lost Tales. Vol. 1. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 0-395-35439-0.
• Tolkien, J. R. R. (1984b).Christopher Tolkien (ed.).The Book of Lost Tales. Vol. 2. Boston:Houghton Mifflin.ISBN 0-395-36614-3.
• Turner, Allan (2011a). "A Theoretical Model for Tolkien Translation Criticism". InHonegger, Thomas (ed.).Tolkien in Translation. Cormarë series. Vol. 4. Zurich:Walking Tree Publishers. pp. 1–30.ISBN 978-3-9521424-6-2.

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