This is volume 7 in The History of Middle earth series, Christopher Tolkien's effort to publish every word his father ever wrote about his invented world.

As with Volume 6, The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard should never be read as a first introduction to J.R.R. Tolkien's worlds. Only those who have read and loved The Lord of the Rings should attempt to read this fascinating but exhausting compilation of Tolkien's attempts to write what became The Lord of the Rings.

The story has now gone far beyond the mere treasure hunt Tolkien originally envisioned for "the New Hobbit." Now darker elements have appeared, and Bilbo's magic ring is fast becoming The One Ring. Familiar parts of the story are present, but often with unfamiliar names: Trotter, Ondor, Bingo, and so on. Nevertheless, the magic of Tolkien's prose and the spell of Middle earth is already apparent.

Read this and the other volumes with a patient eye, and you will be rewarded with the fresh realization of the thick layers that underly everything Tolkien ever wrote and published.

Collections of an author's work are often confusing, particularly when what the author has created is as complex as Tolkien's writings. Here's an overview of the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth, which was edited by his son Christopher Tolkien. Hopefully, it will help you select which book or books to buy.

Keep something in mind. In the U.S. Houghton Mifflin publishes Tolkien's authorized works in hardback and trade paperback editions, while Ballantine Books publishes them as cheaper mass-market paperbacks. For some reason, Ballantine doesn't always make it clear that some of their titles are part of the same History of Middle-earth series as those published by Houghton Mifflin. If the title is the same, the content is the same. Which you buy depends on your taste in books and finances. I have copies of both.


GROUP ONE, VOLUMES I - V

These five volumes deal primarily Tolkien's writings before the publication of The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55). In them, Tolkien was struggling as a still unknown author to create his first history of Middle-earth.

Vol 1 & 2, The Book of Lost Tales Part 1 ( 1983) & 2 (1984). The Book of Lost Tales was written during the 1910s and 1920s. Wikipedia describes it this way: "The framework for the book is that a mortal Man visits the Isle of Tol Eressëa where the Elves live. In the earlier versions of the `Lost Tales' this man is named Eriol, of some vague north European origin, but in later versions he becomes Ælfwine, an Englishman of the Middle-ages."

Vol. 3, The Lays of Beleriand (1985). These are collections of poems, many of them incomplete, written between the 1920s and the late 1940s.

Vol 4, The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986). As you might guess by the title, in this book Christopher describes how his father shaped his vision of Middle-earth from the primitive The Book of Lost Tales to early versions of The Silmarillion. This theme is taken up again in volumes X and XI.

Vol 5. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987). Along with other writings this volume includes Tolkien's drafts of a tale about time travel. Wikipedia describes it this way: "The Lost Road itself is a fragmentary beginning of a tale, including a rough structure and several intiguing chunks of narrative, including four entire chapters dealing with modern England and Numenor, from which the entire story as it should have been can be glimpsed. The scheme was of time-travel by means of 'vision' or being mentally inserted into what had been, so as to actually re-experience that which had happened. In this way the tale links first to Saxon England of Alfred the Great, then to the Lombard Alboin of St. Benedict's time, the Baltic Sea in Old Norse days, Ireland at the time of the Tuatha's coming (600 years after the Flood), prehistoric North in the Ice Age, a 'Galdor story' of Third-Age Middle-Earth, and finally the Fall of Gil-Galad, before recounting the prime legend of the Downfall of Numenor/Atlantis and the Bending of the World. It harps on the theme of a 'straight road' into the West, now only in memory because the world is round."


GROUP TWO, VOLUMES VI - IX

If you or the friend you're buying for is primarily interested in the LOTR, then these four volumes are the books to have. Just keep in mind that you'll find in them many unfinished plots that may or may not fit well into LOTR. Tolkien was a perfectionist, always trying to improve plots and fill in details. These are his drafts.

Vol. 6, The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings v. 1, 1988). Describes the initial stages of writing LOTR and covers the first three-fourths of The Fellowship of the Ring (until the Mines of Moria).

Vol. 7, The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings, v. 2, 1989). Covers from the Mines of Moria until Gandalf meets Théoden about one-fourth of the way into The Two Towers.

Vol. 8, The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings, v. 3, 1990). Continues the tale up to the opening of the Black Gate not quite three-quarters of the way through The Two Towers.

Vol. 9, Sauron Defeated (The History of The Lord of the Rings, v. 4, 1992). Completes the tale and includes an alternate ending in which Sam answers questions from his children. There is also a much shortened version of Vol. 9 called The End of the Third Age, which leaves out material that isn't related to LOTR.


GROUP THREE, VOLUMES X - XI

Just as The Hobbit created a public demand for more tales about hobbits, The Lord of the Rings created a demand for more tales about Middle-earth. To meet that demand, Tolkien struggled to reconcile and adapt many of his earlier tales to the historical framework made well-known by his two published works. He never completed those labors, so it was left after his death to his son Christopher to do so in The Silmarillion (1977). If you or a friend is interested in knowing more about The Silmarillion, these two volumes may be of interest.

Vol 10, Morgoth's Ring (The Later Silmarillion, v. 1, 1993). Contains material from earlier (1951 and later) drafts of The Silmarillion. Wikipedia notes that: "The title of this volume comes from a statement from one of the essays: 'Just as Sauron concentrated his power in the One Ring, Morgoth dispersed his power into the very matter of Arda, thus the whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's Ring.'"

Vol. 11, The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion v. 2, 1994). Addition material about the earlier drafts of The Silmarillion. Includes information about the origin of the Ents and Great Eagles.


GROUP FOUR, VOLUME XII AND INDEX

Vol. 12, The People's of Middle-earth (1996). Contains material that did not fit into the other volumes. The most interesting include additional appendices like those at the back of LOTR, essays on the races of Middle-earth, and about 30 pages of a sequel to the LOTR called The New Shadow. It was set a century after the LOTR. Tolkien abandoned the tale as too "sinister and depressing."

The History of Middle-earth Index (2002) is an index of all twelve volumes.

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Keep in mind that books in The History of Middle-earth are nothing like reading The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. What J. R. R. Tolkien wrote is often fragmentary and unpolished rough drafts, while what Christopher wrote is literary scholarship, concerned more with sources and texts than plots. If you or the friend you are buying for is more interested in understanding LOTR better, you might be happier with a reference works such as:

Karen Fonstad's The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition)

Robert Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth

Or my own detailed, day-by-day chronology Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings

All three will give you a richer, deeper understanding of LOTR.

Finally, if you're interested in reading books with the same flavor as Tolkien, you might consider reading William Morris, a once well-known writer who influenced Tolkien. For tales like the warriors of Rohan, see his The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains. For arduous quest journeys much like Frodo and Sam's quest to be rid of the Ring, read his The Wood Beyond the World and The Well at the World's End. The four tales have been collected into two inexpensive volumes:

More to William Morris: Two Books that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkien-The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the Mountains

On the Lines of Morris' Romances: Two Books That Inspired J. R. R. Tolkien-The Wood Beyond the World and the Well at the World's End

Note too that you can save some money by buying collections of The History of Middle-earth in sets.

`The Treason of Isengard' is the second of a four volume series (`The History of the Lord of the Rings') within a series, (volume VII of `The History of Middle Earth') edited by Christopher Tolkien, from the unpublished writings of his father, J. R. R. Tolkien, most famous as the author of `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings' (LotR).

While the first of this series within a series ended with the Fellowship standing over the tomb of Balin in Moria, this volume returns to drafts which go all the way back to the conversation between Gandalf and Bilbo in Bag End, following the great birthday party and Bilbo's disappearance following his final speech to his gathered celebrants. As such, for the part of the story between Bag End and Moria, the book contains a more tabular and `analytical' information on the various threads of the story, spending much time on the events which delayed Gandalf from returning to the Shire, explaining the title of the volume, since this circumstance was caused by Gandalf's imprisonment by Saruman. There is correspondingly less information on the events surrounding the encounter with Tom Bombadil, and, it seems, no new information on this very mysterious character.

Next to Bombadil, the most mysterious and ill-explained character in LotR, I think, is the Balrog, a massively evil being in Moria who seems to be controlled by neither Saruman nor Sauron, an evil spirit, probably older than either Shelob or Smaug, probably some evil creation of Melkor going back at least to the first or second age. And yet, there is little back-story on the Balrog. The only thing we can infer from the text is that it's power is just barely exceeded by a wizard (power augmented as it is by one of the elven rings). Even Peter Jackson's excellent depiction of the Fellowship's encounter with the Balrog contributes nothing to our insights on this spirit (except to provide the clear high point of the film, `The Fellowship of the Ring'.

This volume ends with the arrival of Gandalf, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli at the halls of Edoras, the capitol of the Riders of Rohan. Therefore, it includes the escape from Moria, the encounter with Galadrial in Lorien, and the trip down the Great River, the Uruk-hai, the encounter with Treebeard, and the reuniting of Gandalf and `the three walkers'.

The second volume is every bit as good as the first of this series of early drafts, with its many chronological tables and early maps.

While this does overlap the first volume, I find nothing lost in reading `The Return of the Shadow' from front to back before starting `The Treason of Isengard'.

Note that the lag between this series and the final LotR text is resolved by the early drafts occupying four rather than three volumes.

If you like the movie, the books, even if you like the first 5 books in the history of mi series, you still may not enjoy this. This I believe is only for the die hard tolkien fans. those of us trying to figure out exactly what he was thinking of each page he wrote, we won't get all his thoughts, but will be able to rea da lot of them.

I would suggest that you go to like barnes and noble and read the first 20 pages or so to see if it interests you. If it doesn't th is ok, you will still need to buy book 9, which you will be overpaying for becuase it's about 40 % the lord and only 60 % numenor and other stuff.

Though still essential for tolkien fans, this book is mainly for die hards.

"The Treason of Isengard" marks the second of four volumes dealing with the history of the writing of "The Lord of the Rings." Like the other volumes in the series, it features unpublished writings by Tolkien, supplemented, explained, footnoted, annotated and expounded upon by his son, Christopher Tolkien.

This book is also part of the larger, 12-part History of Middle Earth series, which takes a close look at the creation of Tolkien's greatest achievement - Middle Earth itself - through early drafts, unpublished texts, and dead end writings. For ardent Tolkien readers it is a fascinating look at one of the great literary creations of the 20th Century. For more casual fans, it's text better left unread.

If you're not a Tolkien fan, you need not apply to this sprawling series. But if you're interested in seeing how the Professor developed the rich creation of Middle Earth, warts and all, this is a treasure trove of material.

Here, like the first volume, we have the earliest versions of what would later become the most beloved fantasy epic in the world, detailing the extraordinary and convoluted history of the middle chapters of "The Lord of the Rings." The early versions of Treebeard, some fascinating ideas Tolkien abandoned regarding Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli, and other dead end plot threads will fascinate readers interesting in knowing about the epic's creation.

The wealth of information is fantastic, and Christopher Tolkien goes to great lengths to examine each text, putting them in the context of the larger puzzle of his father's writings. The exploration of how "The Lord of the Rings" came about is fantastic - for those interested. Otherwise, it will bore. This is, after all, a series of unfinished draft chapters and essays on the text. I enjoyed it, but many won't.

Anybody wishing to do a study of Tolkien's craft, into "behind the scenes" writings, or just interested in finding a few snatches of new Middle Earth material (even if in unfinished form, there are some scattered throughout the series) will certainly find what they are looking for here. Christopher Tolkien's work here is appreciated by scores of ardent Tolkien fans. Those looking for fresh new tales about hobbits and heroes, however, will be disappointed. This isn't new fiction, nor does it even feature finished works. Seek elsewhere if you are looking for more tales in the way of "The Lord of the Rings."