Lord of the Rings

The Tolkien calendar for 1977 was called The Lord of the Rings Calendar, and, as its name suggests, it focused entirely on art inspired by The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien made several drawings for The Lord of the Rings, almost all in coloured pencil, using a muted palette, but it seems very likely that none of them were ever intended for publication. He created most of his illustrations for The Hobbit after the majority of the text had been completed, when the book was due to be published or reprinted. In contrast, his pictures for The Lord of the Rings were drawn while that work was still being written, and for the most part, are quick, rough sketches made to aid the writing. Drawing, it seems, was part of Tolkien’s creative process; it was probably a form of relaxation as well as an aid to visualising the imaginary scenes and landscapes of Middle-earth.

When The Hobbit was published in September 1937, it was an immediate success, and Tolkien’s publishers, George Allen & Unwin, encouraged him to write a sequel. They declined Tolkien’s proposal to publish The Silmarillion, the epic legendarium that he had been working on for many years, because they knew that the public would want more stories about hobbits. But the ‘construction of elaborate and consistent mythology (and two languages’ rather occupied Tolkien’s mind, who admitted that ‘the Silmarils are in my heart’, and so, although he agreed to write a sequel to The Hobbit, it took him a long time to complete it. He began writing what would become The Lord of the Rings in December 1937, but the work was often delayed – by Tolkien’s duties at Oxford, the Second World War, ill health, bouts of failed inspiration, and the distractions of other writing – so it wasn’t finished until 1949.

Although The Lord of the Rings was initially envisioned as another story about hobbits, the tale ‘grew in the telling’, as Tolkien once remarked, until it became part of his larger mythology. He felt that The Lord of the Rings was the ‘continuation and completion’ of The Silmarillion, and that the two works should be published simultaneously. But Allen & Unwin could not afford to publish two such immense works as the author intended. Tolkien even went so far as to approach another publisher, only to be met with another refusal. Eventually, he agreed to let Allen & Unwin publish The Lord of the Rings on its own, proposing a single episode of the history of his invented world.

Even so, the manuscript for The Lord of the Rings was enormous – it was estimated by the printers to run to over 1,000 pages. Tolkien’s publishers decided to release it in three volumes, making each a more manageable size and a more affordable price. These volumes were not published at the same time – The Fellowship of the Ring was released on 29 July 1954, The Two Towers on 11 November, and The Return of the King nearly a year later, on 20 October 1955. The third volume was published much later than the others because it had taken almost a year to bring the appendices, which Tolkien considered essential to the work, to a satisfactory state.

But let’s get back to the calendar at hand. It seems that a precedent had been set by Tolkien’s approval of the publication of the unfinished sketch of The Death of Smaug in previous calendars, which is just as well because there weren’t enough completed Lord of the Rings illustrations to fill a 12-month calendar, even when using images that had already appeared in previous calendars, such as Old Man Willow and Lothlórien. The 1977 calendar, therefore, also includes unfinished sketches and vignettes as indications of the author’s conception of particular places.

The front of the calendar features the image from the dust jackets of the original editions of the books. When it was decided to split the manuscript into three volumes, each was given a subtitle under the overall title of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien initially wanted to call Volume I ‘The Shadow Grows’, but this passed through several iterations before becoming ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’.

Tolkien designed individual dust jackets for each volume, but in the end, his publisher decided (and Tolkien agreed) that one single design would create a stronger identity. The image above is one of five different dust jacket designs that Tolkien drew for the first volume. The One Ring featured prominently in all the designs, here opposed by the three Elven rings, which remain untainted by Sauron. The significance of this was described by Tolkien in a letter to a friend: ‘He [Gandalf] is revealed at last as the Keeper of the Third Ring (Narya, the Red Ring of ‘good’ fire), as Elrond of the Blue, and Galadriel of the White. In the original design for the jacket, all three rings were drawn opposing the Great Ring with their gems pointed at its centre, but the Red in dominant position (for as Gandalf says at last: ‘I was the Enemy of Sauron’).’

Tolkien’s preferred design was a very similar version to the one above, but drawn on black paper, in which the colours of the three opposing rings stand out vividly. However, the publishers decided to use the only design which did not feature all three Elven rings (only Gandalf’s is depicted). It was redrawn by an artist and placed on light grey paper rather than light brown.

February – Rivendell looking east

January features an image we’ve already looked at in the 1973 calendar (Old Man Willow), but February shows a picture we haven’t seen before: a crayon drawing called Rivendell Looking East (at first simply Rivendell). It shows a deep valley, but with a wide vista of fields, hills, and distant mountain peaks. At the bottom of the image is a bridge with three arches spanning a wide river.

It is often believed that this drawing served as the basis for the 1937 watercolour of Rivendell seen in The Hobbit, in which the mountain walls are drawn closer together. However, Christopher Tolkien has stated that, ‘[it] now seems to me to be possible, however, from the style of the picture, that it was, in fact, later than the watercolour, and belongs with the illustrations to The Lord of the Rings.’ That would explain its inclusion in the 1977 calendar, which focuses on images created while Tolkien was writing The Lord of the Rings.

June – Helm’s Deep

The next few months show images we’ve already seen – Moria Gate, Lothlórien, and Fangorn Forest, respectively. For June, we get a rough sketch called Helm’s Deep and the Hornburg. It depicts a deep gorge and the great Gondorian fortress known as the Hornburg in front of it, showing the formidable geography and defensive layout of the site. Tolkien’s aim with this illustration may have been not just to imagine the setting, but also to work out the military geography for the Battle of the Hornburg in The Two Towers, because in his narrative, the terrain – from the narrow gorge to the high walls and the bottlenecked approach – all shape the strategy of the battle. The stream culvert is also shown in the drawing, a weak point that Saruman’s forces would famously exploit.

This sketch was done on a discarded leaf of examination paper, and partly over the handwriting itself. In the reproduction above (the version seen in the 1977 calendar), the writing was removed.

July – Dunharrow

Dunharrow was built by the Men of the Mountains – ancient hill-people who later swore allegiance to Isildur before betraying him during the War of the Last Alliance, refusing to fight for him against Sauron. Later, Dunharrow became a place of refuge for the people of Rohan, situated in the mountains above Edoras. As Merry arrived with King Théoden for the muster of Rohan, he climbed a steep winding path, many hundreds of feet up from the valley below, and emerged onto ‘a green mountain-field of grass and heath’, where tents had been recently erected. Dunharrow clearly underwent several changes in Tolkien’s mind during the course of writing The Lord of the Rings, as he made at least eight sketches of this mountain refuge. The one above is the only one the author is known to have finished. However, after he completed it, Tolkien scrawled across the back, ‘No longer fits the story’, so it was clearly created at an early stage in Dunharrow’s development.

In early drafts of the text, the mountain path and the high plateau led to caves in the mountains, including one great cave capable of holding 2,000 men standing or a great number sitting down to feast. This drawing fits that earlier conception. The winding path, guarded at each turn by ancient carved statues called Púkel-men, can be seen on the left, leading to the Firienfeld, the high mountain plateau. A double line of standing stones leads into the mountain stronghold, giving the image a megalithic atmosphere. In the final text, however, the standing stones march into a dense pine forest leading to the Door of the Dead, an archway cut into the mountainside. This was the path taken by Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and the Grey Company as they sought the aid of the restless dead.

August – Minas Tirith (and Orthanc)

This unfinished sketch of Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, is actually titled ‘Stanburg’ in Fëanorian (Elvish) letters, and ‘Stanburg and Steinborg’ in Roman letters (only the last word is visible in the reproduction above, which is what appeared in the calendar). Stanburg is Old English (and Steinborg Old Norse), meaning ‘Stone-fortress, Stone-city’. At the time of this sketch, Tolkien may still have been experimenting with different names for the fortress.

The drawing shows a side elevation of the great city, rising tier upon tier above the slope of the mountain. Most of Minas Tirith’s famous concentric levels are only faintly sketched here, but the uppermost level is rendered in more detail, with battlements and towers. Some architectural details, such as the bright roof colours and turret shapes, reflect a more medieval European castle aesthetic than the stark, white stone city described in the final text. Tolkien likely abandoned the drawing because his mental image of the city had changed. The Minas Tirith of Book V, Chapter 1 of The Lord of the Rings, built upon the ‘out-thrust knee’ of Mount Mindolluin, had yet to be realised.

Also included in this month is a smaller drawing, seen to the right. It is the final version of Orthanc, the massive, monolithic tower of Isengard. The Númenóreans built it in the Second Age, and it later served as Saruman’s personal fortress. This illustration is actually one of several different conceptions sketched by J.R.R. Tolkien, but it is the one that agrees best with the description in The Two Towers, Book III, Chapter 8, The Road to Isengard:

‘A peak and isle of rock it was, black and gleaming hard: four mighty piers of many-sided stone were welded into one, but near the summit they opened into gaping horns, their pinnacles sharp as the points of spears, keen-edged as knives.’

September – Shelob’s Lair

September features a fascinating illustration. Towards the top of the page and, lower, to the right is an early handwritten draft of the story in The Two Towers of the ascent to the Tower of Cirith Ungol; at the bottom left is a jagged, forbidding mountain range with a narrow path climbing steeply towards sharp peaks. This represents the high pass into Mordor, guarded by the monstrous spider Shelob. There is a reddish wash to the sky, possibly to evoke Mordor’s ever-present volcanic glow. The page as a whole is an excellent example of how Tolkien blended visual imagination with storytelling and how he actively built his world – it probably helped the author visualise the geography of the pass to ensure narrative consistency, but it may also have served as a mood piece.

However, at this stage of the writing, the story and the region’s topography differed from their final forms. For example, in this version, the Spider’s Lair in the tunnel lay between the First Stair and the Second Stair, not beyond the Second Stair as it came to be. Also, in this draft, Gollum had already disappeared by this point in the story, and the giant spider was called Ungoliant; the caption ‘Shelob’s Lair’ was pencilled in later.

November – Rivendell looking west

This unfinished, partly coloured sketch of Rivendell in front of a deep, narrow gorge was probably made as Tolkien was writing the text, since he often drew scenes to clarify his own descriptions. However, this particular image is, in Christopher Tolkien’s own words, ‘puzzling’. He explains why: ‘The words ‘looking West’ are, as can be seen, perfectly clear, and the placing of Elrond’s house in relation to the river agrees with this; but the river is then flowing steeply down out of heights to the westward.’

To put it another way, Rivendell lies on the western side of the Misty Mountains, and the Bruinen River flows westward from the mountains towards the lands of Eriador. So, if we were truly ‘looking west’, as the title explicitly says, we’d be facing downriver toward Eriador, not towards the mountains. In reality, Rivendell Looking West is a view to the east. It seems that Tolkien, for whatever reason, added the words ‘Looking West’ to the original title Rivendell at a later date. The Art of The Hobbit suggests that this may be because Tolkien noticed ‘his sketch of Elrond’s house at bottom centre and [concluded] that, since the house is north of the river (as shown on the map Wilderland), the orientation of the picture must be to the west.’

December – Leaves from the Book of Mazarbul

December features what are, to my mind, the most interesting images in the calendar: meticulously crafted facsimiles of leaves from the Book of Mazarbul. As the Fellowship journeyed through the Mines of Moria, they reached the Chamber of Mazarbul (the ‘Chamber of Records’), where they found the tomb of Balin and the remains of a book in which he recorded the fate of his Dwarf kingdom. The book ‘had been slashed and stabbed and partly burned, and it was so stained with black and other dark marks like old blood that little of it could be read.’ Nevertheless, Gandalf was able to decipher some of the text, including the ominous final entry, ‘We cannot get out. The end comes… drums, drums in the deep… they are coming’.

Although The Lord of the Rings was never intended to be an illustrated book, Tolkien wished to include several maps, the design for the Doors of Durin, and three facsimile pages from the Book of Mazarbul. Initially, it was simply called ‘Balin’s Book’ and then the ‘Book of Moria’, but Tolkien finally settled on ‘Book of Mazarbul’ as being more suitably Dwarvish.

Tolkien used his knowledge of medieval manuscripts to carefully create three burnt, bloodstained fragments of the book. The first page is written in Dwarven runes, the second in the Elvish script using Fëanorian letters, and the third was written mainly in runes apart from the final scrawled line (‘they are coming’), which was written in Elvish – this is presumably because it is easier to use when writing at speed. Tolkien used different handwriting styles to create the fiction of multiple authors contributing to the book. He burnt the edges of the pages with his pipe, pierced holes along the left-hand side where the pages would have been stitched to the binding, and washed the paper with red and brown paint to resemble dried bloodstains. All of this was to make the props look as authentic as possible, as if the pages of this ancient book had been damaged in battle.

Tolkien hoped that these facsimile documents would be reproduced in the text of The Fellowship of the Ring, at the beginning of Book 2, Chapter 5, where Gandalf attempts to read the book – but the cost of including colour pages was a step too far for his publisher, who was already taking a significant gamble by publishing this enormous three-volume fantasy work for adults. Tolkien was unwilling to convert the pages into plain line, as his publisher suggested, and so they were omitted altogether, much to the author’s great dismay. They appeared for the first time as Tolkien had intended in the 1977 calendar. They were not included in an English-language edition of the book until 2004, for the deluxe 50th anniversary edition.

There’s one final image in this calendar to mention. November features, as its main picture, Tolkien’s drawing of Barad-dûr, which previously appeared in the 1973 calendar. But it also has a second, smaller sketch, one of the volcano Orodruin, more commonly known as Mount Doom. Initially, the sketch was done on a small page used for drafting the chapter ‘Mount Doom’ in The Return of the King. The ‘long, sloping causeway that led up to the Mountain’s eastern side’ can be seen, carrying Sauron’s Road from Barad-dûr up to the entrance of the Sammath Naur, the Chambers of Fire, the only place where the One Ring could be destroyed.

Next time, we look at the 1978 Tolkien Calendar, which features images Tolkien created for his expanded legendarium, The Silmarillion – and most of them are ones we haven’t seen before.