Bingo Baggins, Frodo Took and a Hobbit in Wooden Shoes

by a trio of hobbits, all very much younger than himself, named Odo and Frodo Took and Marmaduke Brandybuck. Moreover, the Ring was only slowly evolving from a magic trinket of prankish use into a virulent, invasive instrument of evil. Unlike in 'The Fellowship', Gandalf provided no scene of discovery concerning the Ring nor was there an exposition offered by any character as to its ultimate role as 'the One Ring'.

After seven months of fitful labor on the as yet unnamed sequel, Tolkien, writing to Mr Furth on July 24, lamented his lack of progress and expressed his dismay at ever finding a suitable story.

"The sequel to 'The Hobbit' has remained where it stopped. It has lost my favor, and I have no idea what to do with it. For one thing the original Hobbit was never intended to have a sequel - Bilbo 'remained very happy to the end of his days and those were extraordinarily long': a sentence I find an almost insuperable obstacle to a satisfactory link. For another nearly all of the 'motives' that I can use were packed into the original book, so that a sequel will appear either 'thinner' or merely repetitious."

Plainly, Tolkien had not developed a 'master plan' for his new novel nor had he envisioned the immense scope this story would eventually encompass. It is reasonable to assume that the sequel was to be no more than an extension of 'The Hobbit' - another story about hobbits populated primarily by hobbits. In the earlier stages, for example, the characters who would become Strider and Barliman Butterbur of 'The Prancing Pony' were both played by hobbits. (Incidentally, the ranger hobbit, Trotter, wore wooden shoes.) Links or references to the history of Numenor or the lineage of their kings were not a part of the tale. This story, evidently, had been meant from its out-set, to be merely incidental, not integral to the history of Middle-earth which he was 'sub-creating' in 'The Silmarillion'. That, of course, was to change dramatically.

After languishing 'through some six months or more' according to Christopher Tolkien, the story spoke to his father once more. For Charles Furth received a letter dated August 31, 1938 in which Professor Tolkien ebulliently announced:

"In the last two or three days...I have begun again on the sequel to 'The Hobbit' - The Lord of the Ring. It is now flowing along, and getting quite out of

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