The History of The Lord of the Rings

The History of The Lord of the Rings is a 4-volume work by Christopher Tolkien that documents the process of J. R. R. Tolkien's writing of The Lord of the Rings (LotR). The History is also numbered as volumes 6 to 9 of The History of Middle-earth. Some information concerning the appendices and a soon-abandoned sequel to the novel can also be found in volume 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth.

The volumes include:
 * 1) (HoME 6) The Return of the Shadow (1988) begins with the initial composition, and goes through to the episode in the Mines of Moria.
 * 2) (HoME 7)The Treason of Isengard (1989) continues to the meeting with Théoden king of Rohan.
 * 3) (HoME 8)The War of the Ring (1990) continues to the opening of the Black Gate.
 * 4) (HoME 9) Sauron Defeated (1992) finishes the story, which only takes about 1/3 of the volume.  The remainder consists of  The Notion Club Papers, and another draft of the Drowning of Anadune.

In general, the books are organized as chapters corresponding to the chapters in the final LotR, with additional chapters describing the "First Map", the "Second Map", and other matters. Each chapter begins with some context, then the text of a first or second draft, possibly some alternate drafts if there were especially large changes, and interspersed with extended discussion of confusing or contradictory situations. The end of each chapter includes a set of notes about points of interest, such as words that were used originally and then partially erased or struck out.

While much of the plot of early drafts is familiar, the characters are often quite different. For instance, Aragorn in his "Strider" guise is called "Trotter" instead - and he's a hobbit instead of a man - and he has wooden feet - because he had once been to Mordor and been tortured there. The hobbits travel east initially because that was the part of the world that had been mapped out, because of The Hobbit, and that the areas to the south were literally being mapped out only a few miles ahead of the fellowship.

Of particular interest to fans is the dropped Epilogue to LotR, in which a middle-aged Samwise Gamgee is reading the story to his children.

Three of the titles of the volumes of The History of The Lord of the Rings were also also used as book titles for the 7-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the Shadow for Book I, The Treason of Isengard for Book III and The War of the Ring for Book V.