As always, it it interesting to see how Tolkien changes the story from draft to draft. There were maps in this volume showing how Middle-Earth changed as he went along. The part about the balrog was cool too

This book is not a logical sequel to "The Return of the Shadow" but rather somewhat arbitrary separation of Tolkien early drafts. This book does not start where "The Return of the Shadow" ended as there are again later drafts of previous chapters. Christopher Tolkien had to separate his father's papers into several books so we are not presented with one massive book and this place seems as good as any. So if you expect this book to cover evolution of "The Two Towers" you'll be dissapointed.

Rewrites of early parts of LOTR-Fellowship of the Ring up to Rivendell mostly cover details. Tolkien tinkers with movement of Black riders, movement of Hobbits and most of all dates. Overall interesting details but something that only really hard core Tolkien fans would find cruicial.

The most important part of this volume is "Council of Elrond". This chapter is used as a tool to place LOTR into Tolkien's world and transforms it from "The Hobbit" sequel unconnected to his massive fantasy world to continuation of earlier ages. Tolkien achieves this by renaming characters to equate them with older ones and their motives. Elrond is given place at defeat of Sauron (The Last Alliance), Aragorn becomes Isildur's heir (removed several generations, of course), Gandalf and Saruman are given bigger role in Middle-earth and so on.

Another interesting thing is we see Tolkien's style of writting. LOTR wasn't created from a draft where he had a general idea of events but events more or less wrote themselves. While he had a general idea of ending (destruction of the Ring, last clash between Sauron and Men....) he had little idea about how to get there. While he had general idea about two massive battles which later became siege of Minas Tirith and Black Gates later was to be fought at Mordor itself and former was still sketchy, as can be seen by his inclusion of Ents/Hurons/trees. These elements later found their way to battle of Helm's Deep but at this point Tolkien's ideas about Rohan were still vague.

And it's with Rohan that this book ends. Gimli, Legolas, Gandalf and Aragorn enter that land and see the king but early work shows that much was changed later. While leter events are sketched and you can see hints of pivotal moments these are still rough ideas. You can sense ideas about battle of Helm's Deep but it was to be fought at Isen fords, battle that was covered only briefly in the LOTR.

And if Rohan is still vague Gondor doesn't exists beyond "there is a land in the south where stewards rule for absent king".

Overall written (or edited) in same style as "The Return of the Shadow" this book covers further evolution of LOTR into what we came to love.

Volume 7 of The History Of Middle Earth series, with the usual disclaimer that this series is for Tolkien enthusiasts only.
Last installment the story had reached the Mines Of Moria. However as was his way, Tolkien began rewriting the story again from the beginning. A key problem is- why was Gandalf not with Frodo when Frodo left the shire? Obviously something must have prevented Gandalf from this most important task-Enter Saruman.
The writing then proceeds from Rivendell to the Mines of Moria once again, although it took Tolkien some time to finally decide on the final complement of the Fellowship of the Ring. Interestingly the character of Galadriel almost springs out of thin air- interesting in that Tolkien would subsequently amend the Silmarillion to include her character's backstory.
Then (after many re-writes) the story proceeds to the breaking of the Fellowship and the Death of Boromir. Tolkien already had a pretty clear idea of Frodo and Sam's subsequent adventures, but the story for the rest was still in embryonic form. Here enters the Riders of Rohan, as well as the Ents.
Also included is a discussion of the first map of The Lord of the Rings

Again - this information is something I want to know but it's hard to stay focused on such dry text. Twenty-odd footnotes per chapter make reading kind of unwieldy because I am constantly flipping back and forth between the text and the footnotes, which are gathered at the end of the chapter rather than placed below the text on the page. Still, there are some fun facts that you can pull out of these books for sure!

The Treason of Isengard: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part Two (The History of Middle-Earth #7), J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien

An amazing piece of scholarship, the second volume in a series which chronicles the writing and many revisions of the LoTR trilogy. This second book in the series mostly covers from the start of the Two Towers through to Gandalf’s arrival in Rohan, though there’s some additional coverage on the evolution of Gandalf’s battle in Moria, as well as overall conceptions that would later be applied to earlier phases of writing. The book additionally includes a chapter on the evolving geography of Middle Earth, for those interested in Tolkien’s maps. I found the writing in this volume more confusing than the first, likely because the various drafts and revisions covered in the book were less well delineated than earlier chapters.

It’s stunning to discover just how fluid Tolkien’s process was, with concepts and names constantly in flux yet here and there with entire chunks that were hardly changed from first draft to publication.

The first part of this one took me awhile to get through because it's mostly rewriting the passages from HoME Vol. 6. I even skipped a chapter about maps...... But by the end of the volume, we're in Rohan and that's one of my favourite parts.

Another interesting examination of the various drafts that went into the writing of Lord of the Rings. A lot of the differences were more minor than in the last volume, which led to fewer “wait, what??” moments, but I still enjoyed the deep dive and looked at elements of an old favorite in new ways.

Absolutely fantastic!

While the first book in the History of the Lord of the Rings gave us a glimpse of what the story might have been (if WWII hadn't happened, in my opinion), in this second volume we see characters and situations getting nearer to the story we know.

I was surprised of how slowly some things moved and morphed. Aragorn is a clear example. I thought there must be a time when Tolkien realised who he was... but there isn't. The character changes very slowly, imperceptibly, almost, and at the beginning of The Two Towers he is still Trotter, Arwen hasn’t appeared yet and Tolkien planned to have him marry Eowyn!

The tone of the story changes clearly, too. After Tolkien paused for almost one year when WWII broke out, the story – which moves on from Rivendell – takes up a darker tone, although I was surprised to discover that the depth of the final work is still quite far.

Can't wait to read on!

An always entertaining read, the histories of Middle Earth is like a walkthrough of all the what ifs of Tolkien's works. The possibilities are endless with Tolkien's son painstakingly going back through notes and drafts to distinguish what the sorry could have originally been.

The continuing analysis of the writing process.

It's not so wide-open as it was in The Return of the Shadow, since the prior story imposed definitely constraints. But he's still sorting out which hobbits have what names, and which ones will go. At one point Elrond firmly puts his foot down on the notion that either Merry or Pippin can go. Sam didn't always go with Frodo after the split up, and sometimes he was the first one to see Gandalf again. Eowyn was considered as a love interest for Aragorn, but only briefly. And her cousin, Theoden's daughter, didn't exist for long. At one point Boromir and Aragorn made it to Minas Tirth together, and Aragorn got chosen as Lord there, to Boromir's jealousy.

Interesting to watch the provisional status of everything fixed in the final version.

Az előző kötethez hasonlóan nagy élményt jelentett ennek is az olvasása, szóval talán hasonló dolgokat is fogok kiemelni.
Christopher Tolkien hihetetlen elkötelezettsége és megszállottsággal határos tudományos precizitása, amivel apja hagyatékát feldolgozta, már-már hasonlóan valószínűtlen, mint az, hogy Tolkien milyen részletességgel dolgozta ki mitológiáját. Erre mindenképp érdemes idézni egy rövid részletet a Függelék a rúnákról fejezetből:

"A Darion ábécéjeként ismert rendszer eredetileg főként fába vésett feliratok céljaira tervezett »rúnaírás«, amely az ilkorinok közt jött létre. Többnyire úgy tartják, Doriathban keletkezett, és annyi bizonyos, hogy ott fejlődött ki legteljesebben, még kézírásos változata is létezett. Tényleges feltalálása azonban valószínűleg Ossiriand dan tündéihez köthető (akik végső soron a noldák fajtájából származtak). A »Darion ábécéje« név annak köszönhető, hogy Darionnak, doriathi Thingol király balsorsú dalnokának néhány daltöredéke ezzel az írással maradt fenn Pengoldnak, Gondolin bölcsének az ősi beleriandi nyelvekről írt munkáiban."

Christopher elképesztő munkájára pedig a rengeteg szövegközi hivatkozás (a korábbi kötetekre is) és a névmutató remek példa - ennek precíz átültetéséért a magyar fordító és a szerkesztői gárda is elismerést érdemel.
A Gyűrűk Ura alakuló történetének megismerése ismét számos roppant érdekes részletet kínál: egy korai szövegváltozatban úgy szakad le a moriai híd Gandalf és a balrog alatt, hogy arra ráugrik egy troll; egy kidolgozatlan vázlatban Boromir átáll Szarumánhoz, és végül Aragorn kardja által éri a halál; stb.
De nemcsak a történet alakulásának fázisait izgalmas követni, hanem például az olyan mondatokat olvasni is, mint amit Tolkien egy ismerőséhez írt levelében írt le: úgy érzi, ő nem kitalálja a történetet, hanem egyszer csak "rájön", mi is történt "valójában".
A Gyűrűk Ura históriájának kötetei mindig felébresztik bennem a vágyat, hogy újraolvassam magát az alapművet is, de most már, azt hiszem, megvárom, amíg megjelenik az utolsó kötet is, és ezzel a háttérismerettel felvértezve vetem bele magam újra ebbe a fantasztikus világba.