The Road to Middle-Earth

The book discusses Tolkien's inspiration in creating the world of Middle-earth and the writing of works including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. A recurrent theme is that of Tolkien's detailed linguistic studies (particularly of Old Norse and Old English) and the creation of languages (such as Sindarin and Khuzdul) which feature prominently throughout his works. This was informed by Shippey's tenure at the University of Oxford, teaching the same syllabus as Tolkien at a time when Tolkien still spent time there.[1]

Shippey discusses the possible location of the original Mirkwood, a term reused by Tolkien, in the 4th-century Goth-Hun borderlands between the Carpathian Mountains and the River Dnieper, their mentions in legend analysed and reconstructed by philology.

The book begins by explaining Tolkien's philology, his belief in its ability to show what happened as the Gothic empire fell in the 4th century, and his feeling that if he reconstructed an imagined past on such foundations, it would not be wholly false. It then examines the origins of The Hobbit, how Tolkien rebuilt a picture of Elves and Dwarves from the available clues, and from the different ways of speaking of each race, how he ended up writing a richly-characterised story. Three chapters then explore The Lord of the Rings, its map-based plot, its elaborate interlacement of narrative threads, and its underlying mythical and Christian themes. A chapter examines The Silmarillion's origins and structure; another looks at Tolkien's minor works.

An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources, from the Elder Edda and Beowulf through to the many languages that Tolkien knew. Also attached are four of Tolkien's "asterisk" poems, written to appear to be the ancient origins of more recent works: for instance, Ofer Widne Garsecg is stated by Tolkien to be "An Old English version of 'Twas in the broad Atlantic in the equinoctial gales / That a young fellow fell overboard among the sharks and whales'". Two of the poems concern the Birch tree, symbolising to Tolkien the "B" stream of English studies at Oxford, which covered "Lang[uage]" (including Old English) as opposed to "Lit[erature]" (including Shakespeare).

In the third edition, the book concludes with a chapter on Peter Jackson's film versions; it notes their enormous popular and commercial success, and considers how far the films are faithful to the book. In Shippey's view, the films tend both to "democratisation" and to "emotionalisation" of the narrative, though he welcomes the fact that Jackson has brought a fresh audience to Tolkien's work.[2]

In Great Britain, the book was first published by Allen & Unwin in 1982. The book is published by Houghton Mifflin in the United States. The second edition, published by HarperCollins in 1993, included discussion of the 12-volume History of Middle-earth edited by Tolkien's son Christopher Tolkien. The third edition, published in 2003, added a chapter on Peter Jackson's film version. A Polish edition was published in 2001 by Wydaw. Zysk i S-ka at Poznań. A Spanish edition was brought out by Planeta-De Agostini in Barcelona in 2002. A Russian edition appeared in 2003, published by Limbus Press of Saint Petersburg. A German edition was published by Klett-Cotta in Stuttgart in 2018.[3]