Notes
The War of the Ring, a collection of writings by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited with foreword, commentary and index by Christopher Tolkien.

Volume 8 of the The History of Middle-earth series and Part 3 of The History of The Lord of the Rings.

Publication date unknown. Sources report it variously as 23 August 1990 and September 1990.

Various drawings, sketches, maps and manuscript pages by J.R.R. Tolkien appear as frontispieces and on pages 33, 34, 90, 108, 114, 181, 201, 204, 225, 239, 258, 261, 280, 290 and 314. Sections of maps originally drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien and re-drawn for publication by Christopher Tolkien appear on pages 117, 269, 434 and 435.

Details of all British editions of The War of the Ring can be found at TolkienBooks.net.

Blurb – Dust Jacket Flap
In The War of the Ring Christopher Tolkien takes up the story of the writing of The Lord of the Rings with the Battle of Helm’s Deep and the drowning of Isengard by the Ents. This is followed by an account of how Frodo, Sam and Gollum were finally brought to the Pass of Cirith Ungol, at which point J.R.R. Tolkien wrote at the time: ‘I have got the hero into such a fix that not even an author will be able to extricate him without labour and difficulty.’ Then comes the war in Gondor, and the book ends with the parley between Gandalf and the ambassador of the Dark Lord before the Black Gate of Mordor. Describing his intentions for The Return of the King J.R.R. Tolkien said that ‘It will probably work out very differently from this plan when it really gets written, as the thing seems to write itself once it gets going’: and in The War of the Ring totally unforeseen developments that would become central to the narrative are seen at the moment of their emergence: the palantír bursting into fragments on the stairs of Orthanc, its nature as unknown to the author as to those who saw it fall, or the entry of Faramir into the story (‘I am sure I did not intend him, but there he came walking into the woods of Ithilien’).

The book is illustrated with plans and drawings of the changing conceptions of Orthanc, Dunharrow, Minas Tirith and the tunnels of Shelob’s Lair.