The Return of the Shadow

Join Dr. Corey Olsen, also known as the Tolkien Professor, for a free 14-week seminar on the sixth volume of the History of Middle-earth (HoME) series, The Return of the Shadow.

In prior Academy seminars, we have explored the first five volumes in the HoME series, The Book of Lost Tales, Part 1, The Book of Lost Tales, Part 2, The Lays of Beleriand, The Shaping of Middle-earth, and The Lost Road. At the end of this next session, we will be halfway through the entire series that describes the history of the writing of J. R. R. Tolkien’s stories about Middle-earth.

First published in 1988, The Return of the Shadow begins the four-volume subset of the HoME series that is sometimes called The History of the Lord of the Rings, as it encompasses the development of that book. The title for The Return of the Shadow comes from an early potential title for Book 1 of the novel. As part of the HoME series, The Return of the Shadow looks at the earliest drafts and ideas of the story that eventually becomes The Lord of the Rings, tracing the journey of the ring from Hobbiton to Rivendell and down into Moria, ending at Balin’s tomb.

The History of Middle-earth, Volume 6 is available from Amazon.

A Message from Dr. Corey Olsen

The Mythgard Academy sessions are always free for all and open to the public. Every week, the first 100 participants will be able to join us for the live discussion, which are recorded and made available at no cost through our iTunes U course and on the Signum University YouTube channel.

We are able to bring this series to the public only through the generosity of everyone who supports the Mythgard Institute and Signum University through their generous donations, who nominate and vote on the books that we examine in these discussions. In 2016 alone, we’ve been fortunate enough to look at two other volumes in The History of Middle-earth series – The Shaping of Middle-earth and The Lost Road and Other Writings – as well as one of my favorite books ever, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and a book I had never read before, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.

I’m looking forward to 2017, when many of our regular listeners plus a whole new group of donors will be electing more books to review. If you want to help decide our future topics in the coming year, there’s no better time to join than now! Visit our annual fund page to support our free seminars!

— Dr. Corey Olsen