The Hobbit

From Tolkien Gateway
The name The Hobbit refers to more than one character, item or concept. For a list of other meanings, see The Hobbit (disambiguation).
The name There and Back Again refers to more than one character, item or concept. For a list of other meanings, see There and Back Again (disambiguation).
The Hobbit,
or There and Back Again
The Hobbit 2016-facsimile.jpeg
AuthorJ.R.R. Tolkien
IllustratorJ.R.R. Tolkien
PublisherGeorge Allen and Unwin (UK)
Houghton Mifflin (US)
Released21 September 1937
FormatHardcover; paperback; deluxe-edition; audio-book
Pages312
Followed byThe Lord of the Rings (1954-55)
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party"

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known as The Hobbit, is a children's fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim. The book remains popular and is recognized as a classic in children's literature.

The Hobbit is set within Tolkien's Middle-earth and follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the titular hobbit, to win a share of the treasure guarded by a dragon named Smaug. Bilbo's journey takes him from his light-hearted, rural surroundings into more sinister territory.

The story is told in the form of an episodic quest, and most chapters introduce a specific creature or type of creature of Tolkien's geography. Bilbo gains a new level of maturity, competence, and wisdom by accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey, and adventurous sides of his nature and applying his wits and common sense. The story reaches its climax in the Battle of Five Armies, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict.

Inscription[edit | edit source]

There is an inscription in the Cirth characters in the title page, it reads:

"The Hobbit or There and Back Again, being the record of a year's journey made by Bilbo Baggins of Hobbiton; compiled from his memoirs by J.R.R. Tolkien and published by George Allen and Unwin Ltd."[1]

Synopsis[edit | edit source]

The Hobbit chapters
[Preface]
  1. An Unexpected Party
  2. Roast Mutton
  3. A Short Rest
  4. Over Hill and Under Hill
  5. Riddles in the Dark
  6. Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire
  7. Queer Lodgings
  8. Flies and Spiders
  9. Barrels Out of Bond
  10. A Warm Welcome
  11. On the Doorstep
  12. Inside Information
  13. Not at Home
  14. Fire and Water
  15. The Gathering of the Clouds
  16. A Thief in the Night
  17. The Clouds Burst
  18. The Return Journey
  19. The Last Stage

Gandalf tricks Bilbo Baggins into hosting a party for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of twelve dwarves (Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur), who sing of reclaiming their ancient home, Lonely Mountain, and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils Thrór's Map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "burglar". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself.

The group travels into the wild. Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. When they attempt to cross the Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game, each posing a riddle until one of them cannot solve it. If Bilbo wins, Gollum will show him the way out of the tunnels, but if he fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase, but the company are saved by eagles. They rest in the house of Beorn.

Expulsion by Donato Giancola

The company enters the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf, who has other responsibilities. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition reaches the mountain and finds the secret door. The dwarves send a reluctant Bilbo inside to scout the dragon's lair. He steals a great cup and, while conversing with Smaug, spots a gap in the ancient dragon's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruders, flies off to destroy the town. A thrush overhears Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability and tells Lake-town resident Bard. Smaug wreaks havoc on the town, until Bard fires an arrow into Smaug's hollow spot, killing the dragon.

When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, the most-treasured heirloom of Thorin's family, and hides it away. The Wood-elves and Lake-men request compensation for Lake-town's destruction and settlement of old claims on the treasure. When Thorin refuses to give them anything, they besiege the mountain. However, Thorin manages to send a message to his kinfolk in the Iron Hills and reinforces his position. Bilbo slips out and gives the Arkenstone to the besiegers, hoping to head off a war. When they offer the jewel to Thorin in exchange for treasure, Bilbo reveals how they obtained it. Thorin, furious at what he sees as betrayal, banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable when Dáin Ironfoot, Thorin's second cousin, arrives with an army of dwarf warriors.

Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies.

Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit roughly a year and a month after he first left. Years later, he writes the story of his adventures.

Characters[edit | edit source]

  1. Bilbo Baggins
  2. Belladonna Took (mentioned only)
  3. Bungo Baggins (mentioned only)
  4. Old Took (mentioned only)
  5. Gandalf the Grey
  6. Thorin Oakenshield
  7. Dwalin
  8. Balin
  9. Fíli
  10. Kíli
  11. Óin
  12. Glóin
  13. Dori
  14. Nori
  15. Ori
  16. Bifur
  17. Bofur
  18. Bombur
  19. Smaug
  20. Thráin (mentioned only)
  21. Thrór (mentioned only)
  22. Thráin I (mentioned only)
  23. Azog (mentioned only)
  24. Bullroarer Took (mentioned only)
  25. Golfimbul (mentioned only)
  26. William
  27. Tom
  28. Bert
  29. Elrond
  30. Durin (mentioned only)
  31. The Great Goblin
  32. Gollum
  33. Wargs
  34. The Lord of the Eagles
  35. Beorn
  36. Radagast the Brown (mentioned only)
  37. The Elvenking
  38. Galion
  39. Bard the Bowman
  40. Master of Lake-town
  41. Girion of Dale (mentioned only)
  42. Carc (mentioned only)
  43. Roäc
  44. Dáin Ironfoot
  45. Bolg

Illustrations[edit | edit source]

Thror's map by J.R.R. Tolkien

All editions of The Hobbit contain two maps:

Most editions include another series of eight black and white illustrations, in some editions these have been coloured by H.E. Riddett, these are:

Tolkien created further new colored illustrations for the American edition by Houghton Mifflin.[2]

Conception[edit | edit source]

Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien recollects in a 1955 letter to W.H. Auden (Letters, no. 163) that, in the late 1920s, when he was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, The Hobbit began when he was marking School Certificate papers, on the back of one of which he wrote the words "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit" which evolved into a story like the ones he was making up for his children. He did not go any further than that at the time, although in the following years he drew up Thrór's map, outlining the geography of the tale.

The tale itself he wrote in the early 1930s. It was mostly enjoyed by his eldest son John (13) than the younger ones. His peers at Oxford also "forced" him to lent copies to read.[2] As early as age four and five, young Christopher was concerned with the consistency:

[O]n one occasion I interrupted: 'Last time, you said Bilbo's front door was blue, and you said Thorin had a golden tassel on his hood, but you've just said that Bilbo's front door was green and that Thorin's hood was silver'; at which point my father muttered 'Damn the boy,' and then 'strode across the room' to his desk to make a note.
—Christopher Tolkien, foreword to The Hobbit

It was eventually published because he lent it to the Reverend Mother Superior of Cherwell Edge when she was sick with the flu;[source?] he had also sent it to his former pupil Elaine Griffiths who was staying in the Cherwell Edge girl's hostel, and it was seen by her student, Susan Dagnall, who worked in the Allen and Unwin offices. It was the 10-year old son of Sir Stanley Unwin, Rayner Unwin, who wrote such an enthusiastic review of the book that it was published by Allen and Unwin.[3] By January of 1937 Tolkien was corresponding with Allen and Unwin (who also showed interest for Mr. Bliss and had to redraw the maps.[4][5] In February he approved the reduction of his illustrations[6] and in April he provided a dust for the dast cover with its runic inscription.[1]

Tolkien introduced or mentioned characters and places that figured prominently in his personal mythology, like Gondolin, which added depth, along with elements from Germanic legend.[7] But the decision that the events of The Hobbit could be part of his Legendarium was made only after successful publication, when the publisher asked for a sequel. Accordingly, The Hobbit serves both as an introduction to Middle-Earth and as a link between earlier and later events described in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, respectively.

Although a fairy tale, the novel is both complex and sophisticated: it contains many names and words derived from Norse mythology, and central plot elements from the Beowulf epic, it makes use of Anglo-Saxon Runes, information on calendars and moon phases, and detailed geographical descriptions that fit well with the accompanying maps. Near the end, the tale takes on epic proportions.

Publication[edit | edit source]

George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London published the first edition of The Hobbit on 21 September 1937. It was illustrated with many black-and-white drawings by Tolkien himself. The original printing numbered a mere 1,500 copies and sold out by 15 December that same year due to enthusiastic reviews. Houghton Mifflin of Boston and New York prepared an American edition to be released early in 1938 in which four of the illustrations would be colour plates. Allen & Unwin decided to incorporate the colour illustrations into their second printing, released at the end of 1937.[8] Despite the book's popularity, wartime conditions forced the London publisher to print small runs of the remaining two printings of the first edition.

After its publication, Tolkien's son Christopher was "hired" for his eye for consistency and was paid twopence a correction for subsequent publications.[source?]

As remarked above, Tolkien substantially revised The Hobbit's text describing Bilbo's dealings with Gollum in order to blend the story better into what The Lord of the Rings had become. This revision became the second edition, published in 1951 in both UK and American editions. Slight corrections to the text have appeared in the third (1966) and fourth editions (1978). (The original version of the Gollum chapter is included in The Annotated Hobbit, more information about the book's textual changes can be found in The History of The Hobbit.)

New English-language editions of The Hobbit spring up often, despite the book's age, with at least fifty editions having been published to date. Each comes from a different publisher or bears distinctive cover art, internal art, or substantial changes in format. The text of each generally adheres to the Allen & Unwin edition extant at the time it is published.

Reception[edit | edit source]

On first publication in October 1937, The Hobbit was met with almost unanimously favourable reviews from publications both in the UK and the US, including The Times, Catholic World, and New York Post. C.S. Lewis, friend of Tolkien (and later author of The Chronicles of Narnia between 1949 and 1954), writing in The Times reports:

The truth is that in this book a number of good things, never before united, have come together: a fund of humour, an understanding of children, and a happy fusion of the scholar's with the poet's grasp of mythology... The professor has the air of inventing nothing. He has studied trolls and dragons at first hand and describes them with that fidelity that is worth oceans of glib 'originality'.

Lewis compares the book to Alice in Wonderland in that both children and adults may find different things to enjoy in it, and places it alongside Flatland, Phantastes, and The Wind in the Willows.[9] W.H. Auden, in his review of the sequel The Fellowship of the Ring, calls The Hobbit "one of the best children's stories of this century".[10] Auden was later to correspond with Tolkien, and they became friends.

The Hobbit was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction of the year (1938).[11] More recently, the book has been recognized as "Most Important 20th-Century Novel (for Older Readers)" in the Children's Books of the Century poll in Books for Keeps.[12] In 2012 it was ranked number 14 on a list of the top 100 children's novels published by School Library Journal.[13]

Publication of the sequel The Lord of the Rings altered many critics' reception of the work. Instead of approaching The Hobbit as a children's book in its own right, critics such as Randel Helms picked up on the idea of The Hobbit as being a "prelude", relegating the story to a dry-run for the later work. Countering a presentist interpretation are those who say this approach misses out on much of the original's value as a children's book and as a work of high fantasy in its own right, and that it disregards the book's influence on these genres.[14] Commentators such as Paul Kocher,[15] John D. Rateliff,[16] and C.W. Sullivan encourage readers to treat the works separately, both because The Hobbit was conceived, published, and received independently of the later work, and to avoid dashing readers' expectations of tone and style.

Adaptations[edit | edit source]

Radio and audio[edit | edit source]

The Hobbit has been adapted for other media. BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Hobbit radio drama, adapted by Michael Kilgarriff, in eight parts (4 hours) from September to November 1968, which starred Anthony Jackson as narrator, Paul Daneman as Bilbo and Heron Carvic as Gandalf.

Middle-earth has been featured in songs notably by Enya and the Brobdingnagian Bards. Led Zeppelin's songs "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Ramble On" both contain references to Tolkien's mystical world. For The Hobbit itself, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins", performed by Leonard Nimoy as part of his 1968 Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy album, is the most pertinent because it recounts the book's storyline in its two minutes. The ballad's music video became a minor Internet meme in the early 2000s when The Lord of the Rings movies were released.

In 1974, Argo Records released an audio adaptation of The Hobbit, with Nicol Williamson providing the voices for all the characters in the book. It was an abridged adaptation , as Williamson re-edited the original script, removing many instances of "he said" and so on, preferring instead to rely on his vocal characteristics to convey who was saying what to whom, feeling that this would keep the audience engrossed in the story rather than slowing the overall pace.

Video games[edit | edit source]

Several computer and video games, both official and unofficial, have been based on the story. One of the first was The Hobbit, a computer game developed in 1982 by Beam Software and published by Melbourne House for most computers available at the time, from the more popular computers such as the ZX Spectrum, and the Commodore 64, through to such esoteric computers as the Dragon 32 and Oric computers. By arrangement with publishers, a copy of the novel was included with each game sold.

Vivendi Universal Games published The Hobbit: Prelude to The Lord of the Rings in 2003 for Windows PCs, PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. It is a hack and slash game produced as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings video games, but also as a softer version of those two games: less brutal, fewer enemies but with an important platform aspect, the game was designed for smaller children. A similar version of this game was also published for the Game Boy Advance.

Films[edit | edit source]

The first adaptation of The Hobbit was presented as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and was created by Gene Deitch in 1966. The film was produced by William Lawrence Snyder and took less than a month to create. The film was approximately twelve minutes long and was only created so that Snyder could extend his license for The Lord of the Rings and sell it back to Tolkien and his publishers, which he did for $100,000.[17]

An animated film was first broadcasted on Sunday, 27 November, 1977 on NBC by Rankin/Bass. It managed to squeeze most of the essential story into its 77 minute runtime and adapts many of Tolkien's songs making the film a musical.

A three-part live-action film version of The Hobbit based on the book, and incorporating elements from the Apprendices of The Lord of the Rings was produced and directed by Peter Jackson, who had also produced and directed a film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. Principal photography began in 2011 and ended in 2012, with the majority of the scenes being shot in New Zealand.

This film series was released in three parts: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey was released on 14 December 2012; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug was released on 13 December 2013; and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was released worldwide on 17 December 2014.

Miscellaneous[edit | edit source]

A drama playscript was published in 1968, which is made of multiple simple sets and runs about 2 hours. A live action television dramatization was broadcast on USSR televsion in 1985. David T. Wenzel's graphic format adaptation of The Hobbit was published in 1989.

Publication history and gallery[edit | edit source]

Please see Publication history and gallery.

See also[edit | edit source]

Related books

External links[edit | edit source]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 12, (dated 13 April 1937)
  2. 2.0 2.1 J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 15, (dated 31 August 1937)
  3. J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 294, (dated 8 February 1967)
  4. J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 9, (dated 4 January 1937)
  5. J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 10, (dated 17 January 1937)
  6. J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 11, (dated 5 February 1937)
  7. J.R.R. Tolkien; Humphrey Carpenter, Christopher Tolkien (eds.), The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 257, (dated 16 July 1964)
  8. Laura Massey, "Identifying & Collecting Tolkien First Editions" dated 9 January 2012, PeterHarrington.co.uk (accessed 12 January 2012)
  9. Anderson, Douglas A. (ed.). The Annotated Hobbit
  10. Auden, W.H. "The Hero is a Hobbit"
  11. Carpenter, Humphrey; Tolkien, Christopher (eds.). The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
  12. "FAQ: Did Tolkien win any awards for his books?". The Tolkien Society. 2002
  13. "Top 100 Chapter Book Poll Results"
  14. Sullivan, C.W. (1996). High Fantasy
  15. Kocher, Paul (1974). Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien
  16. Rateliff, John D. (2007). The History of The Hobbit
  17. Gene Deitch, "Hobbit-alized: The First Attempt At Animating The Hobbit" dated 11 December 2001, awn.com (accessed 10 January 2012)
Illustrators of The Hobbit
Internal art J.R.R. Tolkien (1937-present) · Eric Fraser (The Folio Society: 1979, 1992-present) · Michael Hague (1984-1992) · David T. Wenzel (graphic novel: 1989-present) · Alan Lee (1997-present) · David Wyatt (1998-2001, 2012-2013) · John Howe (pop-up: 1999) · Jemima Catlin (2013-present)
Cover art only J.R.R. Tolkien (1937-present) · Pauline Baynes (1961) · Roger Garland (1987-1989) · John Howe (1991-present) · Ted Nasmith (1989-1991) · Barbara Remington (1965 US)
A J.R.R. Tolkien book guide
Books by or mainly by Tolkien
Of Arda Authored by
J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hobbit · The Lord of the Rings
(i.The Fellowship of the Ring · ii.The Two Towers · iii.The Return of the King) ·
The Road Goes Ever On · Bilbo's Last Song
Edited by Christopher Tolkien The Silmarillion · Unfinished Tales · The History of Middle-earth series
(i.The Book of Lost Tales: Part One · ii.The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two · iii.The Lays of Beleriand · iv.The Shaping of Middle-earth · v.The Lost Road and Other Writings · vi.The Return of the Shadow · vii.The Treason of Isengard · viii.The War of the Ring · ix.Sauron Defeated · x.Morgoth's Ring · xi.The War of the Jewels · xii.The Peoples of Middle-earth · Index) ·
The Children of Húrin · Beren and Lúthien · The Fall of Gondolin
Edited by others The Annotated Hobbit · The History of The Hobbit · The Nature of Middle-earth ·
The Fall of Númenor · The Maps of Middle-earth
Not of Arda Short stories
and poems
Leaf by Niggle · Farmer Giles of Ham · Smith of Wootton Major · The Adventures of Tom Bombadil ·
Letters from Father Christmas · Mr. Bliss · Roverandom ·
Tree and Leaf (compilation) · Tales from the Perilous Realm (compilation)
Fictional works The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún · The Fall of Arthur · The Story of Kullervo · The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun
Translations and academic works Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo · Finn and Hengest ·
The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays · Beowulf and the Critics · Tolkien On Fairy-stories ·
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary · A Secret Vice · The Battle of Maldon
Collected letters and poems The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien · The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien
Edited old texts A Middle English Vocabulary · Sir Gawain and the Green Knight · Ancrene Wisse · The Old English Exodus
Books by other authors
Biographies J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography · The Inklings · Tolkien and the Great War
Reference works The Complete Guide to Middle-earth · The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
Scholarly studies The Road to Middle-earth · The Keys of Middle-earth · The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion ·
The Ring of Words · A Companion to J.R.R. Tolkien · Tolkien's Lost Chaucer ·
Tolkien's Library · Tolkien on Chaucer, 1913-1959
Scholarly journals Tolkien Studies · (The Chronology)
Other works by Tolkien
Linguistic journals Vinyar Tengwar various issues · Parma Eldalamberon issue 11-22
Collections of artwork
and manuscripts
Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien · J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend · J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator ·
The Art of The Hobbit · The Art of The Lord of the Rings · Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth ·
Tolkien: Treasures · J.R.R. Tolkien: The Art of the Manuscript
This list is only a selection of works, for a fuller bibliography of Tolkien see here or here. See also a timeline.
The Hobbit film series
Source material: The Hobbit · The Lord of the Rings
Films An Unexpected Journey (extended editionThe Desolation of Smaug (extended edition) · The Battle of the Five Armies (extended edition)
Music An Unexpected Journey (Special Edition) · The Desolation of Smaug (Special Edition) · The Battle of the Five Armies (Special Edition) · "Song of the Lonely Mountain" · "I See Fire" · "The Last Goodbye"
Tie-in books An Unexpected Journey Official Movie Guide · Visual Companion · Movie Storybook · Annual 2013 · Chronicles: Art & Design · Chronicles: Creatures & Characters · The World of Hobbits
The Desolation of Smaug Official Movie Guide · Visual Companion · Movie Storybook · Annual 2014 · Chronicles: Art & Design · Chronicles: Cloaks & Daggers · Smaug: Unleashing the Dragon · Activity Book · Sticker Book · Ultimate Sticker Collection
The Battle of the Five Armies Official Movie Guide · Visual Companion · Movie Storybook · Annual 2015 · Chronicles: Art & Design · Chronicles: The Art of War · Activity Book
Video games Kingdoms of Middle-earth · Armies of The Third Age · Lego The Hobbit
Characters Bilbo · Thorin · Gandalf · Balin · Fíli · Kíli · Dwalin · Dori · Nori · Ori · Óin · Glóin · Bifur · Bofur · Bombur · Smaug · Radagast · Elrond · Galadriel · Saruman · Azog · Bolg · Thranduil · Legolas · Tauriel · Bard · Bain · Tilda · Sigrid · Master of Lake-town · Alfrid · Dáin Ironfoot · Necromancer · Bert · William · Tom · Beorn · Thráin · Thrór · Goblin King · Gollum · Frodo
The Lord of the Rings film series
Source material: The Hobbit · The Lord of the Rings
Films The Fellowship of the Ring (extended editionThe Two Towers (extended edition) · The Return of the King (extended edition)
Music The Fellowship of the Ring (The Complete Recordings) · The Two Towers (The Complete Recordings) · The Return of the King (The Complete Recordings) · "May It Be" · "Gollum's Song" · "Into the West"
Tie-in books Official Movie Guide · The Making of the Movie Trilogy · Complete Visual Companion · Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic · There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale · Weapons and Warfare · The Art of The Lord of the Rings · Sketchbook
The Fellowship of the Ring Visual Companion · The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring
The Two Towers Visual Companion · Photo Guide · The Art of The Two Towers
The Return of the King Visual Companion · The Art of The Return of the King
Video games The Two Towers · The Return of the King · The Third Age · Tactics · Conquest · Aragorn's Quest · Lego The Lord of the Rings
Characters Frodo · Bilbo · Gandalf · Sam · Merry · Pippin · Gandalf · Aragorn · Boromir · Legolas · Gimli · Elrond · Galadriel · Théoden · Éomer · Éowyn · Saruman · Sauron · Witch-king · Denethor · Faramir · Gollum · Gríma · Treebeard · Celeborn · Haldir · Lurtz · Sharku · Grishnákh