The Lost Road and Other Writings
The Lost Road and Other Writings, published in 1987, is the fifth volume of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume book series, The History of Middle-earth, in which he analyzes the unpublished manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Background
The Lost Road itself was the result of a joint decision by Tolkien and C.S. Lewis to make attempts at writing science fiction. Lewis ended up writing a story about space travel, which eventually became The Space Trilogy, and Tolkien tried to write something about time travel, but never completed it.
The Lost Road is a fragmentary beginning of that "time travel" tale, with a rough outline and several pieces of narrative, including four chapters dealing with modern England and Númenor, from which the entire story may be glimpsed. The scheme was for time travel by means of "vision", or being mentally inserted into what had been so as to experience that which had happened. In this way the tale links the 20th century to many legends of older times, going further and further back, until to the Third Age of Middle-earth, and finally to the Fall of Gil-galad, before recounting the prime legend of the Downfall of Númenor and the Bending of the World.
The novel explores the theme of the "Straight Road" into the West, now open only in memory because the world has become round. Tolkien reworked and expanded some of the ideas in The Lost Road in The Notion Club Papers, which was also left unfinished.
Contents
- Preface
- Part One: The Fall of Númenor and the Lost Road
- — I. "The Early History of the Legend"
- — II. "The Fall of Númenor"
- — III. "The Lost Road"
- Part Two: Valinor and Middle-earth before The Lord of the Rings
- — I. "The Texts and Their Relations"
- — II. "The Later Annals of Valinor"
- — III. "The Later Annals of Beleriand"
- — IV. "Ainulindalë"
- — V. "The Lhammas"
- — VI. "Quenta Silmarillion"
- Part Three: "The Etymologies"
- Appendices
- — I: The Genealogies
- — II: The List of Names
- — III: The Second 'Silmarillion' Map
- Index
Inscriptions
There is an inscription in the Tengwar characters in the first pages of every History of Middle-earth volume, written by Christopher Tolkien and describing the contents of the book. The inscription in Book V reads:
"Herein are collected the oldest Tale of the Downfall of Númenor, the story of the Lost Road into the West, the Annals of Valinor and the Annals of Beleriand in a later form, the Ainulindalë, or Music of the Ainur, the Lhammas, or Account of Tongues, the Quenta Silmarillion or History of the Silmarils, and the history of many words and names."
Publication history and gallery
UK editions
- Unwin Hyman, hardcover (1987), pp. 448. ISBN 0048233498
- Unwin Paperbacks, paperback (1989), ISBN 0044403984 - (cover art by Roger Garland)
- HarperCollins hardcover (1991), ISBN 0261102044
- HarperCollins paperback (1993), ISBN 0261102257 - (cover art by John Howe)
- — 1993 paperback edition, reset in 2002, then in 2015
- HarperCollins hardcover (2010), ISBN 0007365292
- — 2015 paperback edition, 37th impression (2024)
- HarperCollins hardcover with reversable dustjacket (2024), ISBN 978-0008669225 - (Centenary Boxed Sets #2)
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 30/05/2026.
