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the Foreword as published this concluding paragraph began: Much information, necessary and unnecessary, will be found in the Prologue. To complete it some maps are given, including one of the Shire that has been approved as reasonably correct by those Hobbits that still concern themselves with ancient history. At the end of the third volume will be found also some abridged family-trees ...
    When P 6 was written, of course, the idea that The Lord of the Rings should be issued as a work in three volumes was not remotely envisaged. The published Foreword retained the reference to 'an index of names and strange words with some explanations', although in the event it was not provided.
    16. I did not carry my account of the history of The Shadow of the Past so far as this: see VII.28-9.
    17. In this connection it is interesting to see what my father said in his letter to Sir Stanley Unwin of 10 September 1950 (Letters no.129):
    I have now on my hands two printed versions of a crucial incident. Either the first must be regarded as washed out, a mere miswriting that ought never to have seen the light; or the story as a whole must take into account the existence of two versions and use it. The former was my original simpleminded intention, though it is a bit awkward (since the Hobbit is fairly widely known in its older form) if the literary pretence of historicity and dependence on record is to be maintained. The second can be done convincingly (I think), but not briefly explained in a note.
    The last words refer to the note required for the new edition of The Hobbit explaining the difference in the narrative in Riddles in the Dark. Four days later he wrote again (Letters no.130): I have decided to accept the existence of both versions of Chapter Five, so far as the sequel goes - though I have no time at the moment to rewrite that at the required points.
    II.
    THE APPENDIX ON LANGUAGES.

    Beside the Foreword: Concerning Hobbits, whose development, clear and coherent, into the Prologue has been described in the last chapter, there is another text of a prefatory or introductory nature; and it is not easy to see how my father designed it to relate to the Foreword: Concerning Hobbits. Indeed, except in one point, they have nothing in common; for this further text (which has no title) is scarcely concerned with Hobbits at all. For a reason that will soon be apparent I give it here in full.
    It was typed on small scrap paper, and very obviously set down by my father very rapidly ab initio without any previous drafting, following his thoughts as they came: sentences were abandoned before complete and replaced by new phrasing, and so on. He corrected it here and there in pencil, either then or later, these corrections being very largely minor improvements or necessary 'editorial' clarifications of the very rough text; in most cases I have incorporated these (not all are legible). I have added paragraph numbers for subsequent reference. Notes to this section will be found on page 26.

    $1. This tale is drawn from the memoirs of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, preserved for the most part in the Great Red Book of Samwise. It has been written during many years for those who were interested in the account of the great Adventure of Bilbo, and especially for my friends, the Inklings (in whose veins, I suspect, a good deal of hobbit blood still runs), and for my sons and daughter.
    $2. But since my children and others of their age, who first heard of the finding of the Ring, have grown older with the years, this tale speaks more clearly of those darker things which lurked only on the borders of the other tale, but which have troubled the world in all its history.
    $3. To the Inklings I dedicate this book, since they have already endured it with patience - my only reason for supposing that they have a hobbit-strain in their venerable ancestry: otherwise it would be hard to account for their interest in the history and geography of those long-past days,