The Peoples of Middle-earth by J. R. R. Tolkien

expressly relating to the narrative; but that involuntarily he was soon swept into writing about those matters of languages and scripts that he felt needed some introduction and explanation at least as much as did the Hobbits. The result was, clearly, a combination wholly unsuitable to his purpose, and he put it aside. I would also guess that it was the writing of this text that gave rise to the idea of a special Appendix on languages and scripts (ultimately divided into two); and this is why I place it at the beginning of this account of the evolution of what came to be 'Appendix F', The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age. Since I shall number the texts of this Appendix from 'F 1', it is convenient to call this anomalous 'Foreword' F*.
    My father did not lose sight of this text, however, and later used elements from it, both in Appendix F (11) and in the Foreword that accompanied the First Edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, published in 1954. Since copies of the First Edition may not be easy to come by, I print the greater part of it again here (for the concluding section see p. 12 with note 15).

    This tale, which has grown to be almost a history of the great War of the Ring, is drawn for the most part from the memoirs of the renowned Hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo, as they are preserved in the Red Book of Westmarch. This chief monument of Hobbit-lore is so called because it was compiled, repeatedly copied, and enlarged and handed down in the family of the Fairbairns of Westmarch, descended from that Master Samwise of whom this tale has much to say.
    I have supplemented the account of the Red Book, in places, with information derived from the surviving records of Gondor, notably the Book of the Kings; but in general, though I have omitted much, I have in this tale adhered more closely to the actual words and narrative of my original than in the previous selection from the Red Book, The Hobbit. That was drawn from the early chapters, composed originally by Bilbo himself. If 'composed' is a just word. Bilbo was not assiduous, nor an orderly narrator, and his account is involved and discursive, and sometimes confused: faults that still appear in the Red Book, since the copiers were pious and careful, and altered very little.
    The tale has been put into its present form in response to the many requests that I have received for further information about the history of the Third Age, and about Hobbits in particular. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this book speaks more plainly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the earlier tale, but which have troubled Middle-earth in all its history. It is, in fact, not a book written for children at all; though many children will, of course, be interested in it, or parts of it, as they still are in the histories and legends of other times (especially in those not specially written for them).
    I dedicate the book to all admirers of Bilbo, but especially to my sons and my daughter, and to my friends the Inklings. To the Inklings, because they have already listened to it with a patience, and indeed with an interest, that almost leads me to suspect that they have hobbit-blood in their venerable ancestry. To my sons and my daughter for the same reason, and also because they have all helped me in the labours of composition. If 'composition' is a just word, and these pages do not deserve all that I have said about Bilbo's work.
    For if the labour has been long (more than fourteen years), it has been neither orderly nor continuous. But I have not had Bilbo's leisure. Indeed much of that time has contained for me no leisure at all, and more than once for a whole year the dust has gathered on my unfinished pages. I only say this to explain to those who have waited for this book why they have had to wait so long. I have no reason to complain. I am surprised and delighted to find from