Red Book of Westmarch - Relationship To Real Works

Relationship To Real Works

See also: Revisions of the Hobbit

As a memoir and history, the contents of the Red Book probably correspond to Tolkien's work as follows:

  • Bilbo's journey: The Hobbit
  • Frodo's journey: The Lord of the Rings
  • Background information: the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, as well as essays such as published in Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth
  • Hobbit poetry and legends: The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (in the Red Book, scattered throughout the margins of the text of Bilbo and Frodo's journeys)
  • Bilbo's translation of Elven histories and legends: The Silmarillion

Some events and details concerning Gollum and the magic ring in the first edition of The Hobbit were rewritten for The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was later revised for consistency. Tolkien explains the discrepancies as Bilbo's lies (influenced by the ring, now the sinister One Ring).

Tolkien also said the original version of the Red Book contained the story of Bilbo's journey from the first edition of the Hobbit. Beginning with the Thain's Book, later copies of the Red Book contained, as an alternative, the true account (from notes from Frodo and Sam). Tolkien says neither hobbit seemed willing "to delete anything actually written by the old hobbit himself."

Read more about this topic:  Red Book Of Westmarch

Famous quotes containing the words relationship, real and/or works:

    “The proper aim of education is to promote significant learning. Significant learning entails development. Development means successively asking broader and deeper questions of the relationship between oneself and the world. This is as true for first graders as graduate students, for fledging artists as graying accountants.”
    —Laurent A. Daloz (20th century)

    “I did not go to Boston, for with regard to that place I sympathize with one of my neighbors, an old man, who has not been there since the last war, when he was compelled to go. No, I have a real genius for staying at home.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.”
    —Bible: New Testament, Galatians 2:15-16.