In the first part of
Sauron Defeated, Christopher Tolkien completes his account of the
writing of The Lord of the Rings, beginning with Sam's rescue of Frodo
from the Tower of Kirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of
the Scouring of the Shire. This part ends with versions of the
previously unpublished Epilogue, an alternate ending to the masterpiece
in which Sam attempts to answer his children's questions years after the
departure of Bilbo and Frodo from the Grey Havens. The second part
introduces The Notion Club Papers, now published for the first time.
Written by J.R.R. Tolkien in the interval between The Two Towers and The
Return of the King (1945-1946), these mysterious Papers, discovered in
the early years of the twenty-first century, report the discussions of a
literary club in Oxford in the years 1986-1987. Those familiar with the
Inklings will see a parallel with the group whose members included
J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. After a discussion of the possiblities of
travel through space and time through the medium of 'true dream," the
story turns to the legend of Atlantis, the strange communications
received by members of the club out of remote past, and the violent
irruption of the legend into northwestern Europe. Closely associated
with the Papers is a new version of the Numenorean legend, The Drowning
of Anadune, which constitutes the third part of the book. At this time
the language of the Men of the West, Adunaic, was first devised -
Tolkien's fifteenth invented language. The book concludes with an
elaborate account of the structure of this language by Arundel Lowdham, a
member of the Notion Club, who learned it in his dreams. Sauron
Defeated is illustrated with the changing conceptions of the fortress of
Kirith Ungol and Mount Doom, previously unpublished drawings of Orthanc
and Dunharrow, and fragments of manuscript written in Numenorean
script.
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