Skip to content

The Lost Road and Other Writings

The Lost Road and Other Writings

FantasyLiterary Fiction
Pages
503
Published
1987
Language
English

Synopsis

Volume Five of the History of Middle-earth contains the unfinished Lost Road -- Tolkien's abortive attempt at a time-travel novel conceived jointly with C.S. Lewis, in which a father and son in the modern world receive visions of their previous lives across different historical periods, ultimately approaching the fall of Numenor. Alongside the fragmentary novel, the volume includes the Lhammas (an essay on the languages of Middle-earth and their relationships), the Earliest Annals of Valinor and Beleriand in revised form, and the Quenta Silmarillion continued. Christopher Tolkien's commentary illuminates the relationship between the Lost Road concept and the eventual Akallabeth, and why the time-travel mechanism was ultimately abandoned.

Prose complexity
8/10

Vibe

Thought-ProvokingIntellectualMelancholicAtmospheric
Dual TimelineTime LoopPortal FantasyFamily SagaSacrifice

Genres

Fantasy Literary Fiction Mythology Science Fiction

About the author

J
J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892 and raised in England after his mother brought him home at age three. Orphaned before he was thirteen — his mother died a devout Catholic convert — Tolkien went on to study Old and Middle English, Germanic languages, Welsh, and Finnish at Oxford. He graduated in 1915, married Edith Bratt before shipping out to the Western Front, and fought in the Battle of the Somme. Nearly all of his closest friends were killed. He contrac...

Characters

Alboin ErrolProtagonist

The protagonist of the Lost Road fragment -- an English philologist who receives visions of previous lives reaching back through time toward Numenor.

All characters in The Lost Road and Other Writings

Frequently asked questions

  • What is The Lost Road?

    An unfinished time-travel novel Tolkien began in the late 1930s, after a challenge from C.S. Lewis for each of them to write a story. Lewis tackled space travel (Out of the Silent Planet), Tolkien tackled time travel. Tolkien abandoned it after a few chapters.

  • What is this volume's position in the History of Middle-earth?

    Volume Five of twelve. It bridges the early mythological volumes and the later volumes that trace the writing of The Lord of the Rings.

  • Is The Lost Road related to Numenor?

    Yes -- the time-travel sequence was intended to culminate in the fall of Numenor, making the novel a bridge between the Silmarillion mythology and the modern world. The concept of Numenor as a memory of Atlantis originates in this abandoned project.

  • What is the Lhammas?

    An essay by Tolkien on the families and history of the languages of Middle-earth -- a linguistic genealogy tracing how Elvish and other tongues developed and diverged.