J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is generally considered to be the crème de la crème of fantasy epics, and served to define the genre for all who came afterward. Yet for all of LOTR‘s fame, few if any fans know that near the end of his life, Tolkien was working on a potential sequel to the beloved series. The New Shadow, as it was tentatively called, was a project the author made little progress on, writing only a few drafts that totaled 14 pages.

The manuscript of The New Shadow eventually published by Tolkien’s son Christopher as a chapter in The Peoples of Middle-earth, the twelfth and final volume of The History of Middle-earth that collected the majority of Tolkien’s unpublished writings. Yet Tolkien himself had abandoned the project, having decried his efforts in a letter sent just a year before his death in 1973. The New Shadow would have been an almost unrecognizable story to LOTR fans; the 14 extant pages of manuscript are full of plenty of unexpected details.

The New Shadow Was Far More Depressing Than The Lord Of The Rings (And That’s Why Tolkien Abandoned It)

Instead Of A Story Of Heroism, It Was A Tale Of Suspicion And Secrets

Set 220 years into Middle-earth’s Fourth Age, a century after Aragorn’s son Eldarion took up the throne of Gondor, The New Shadow set up a much bleaker story than its predecessor. The Lord of the Rings was a saga of how the smallest of people could be the greatest source of heroism in dark times, and of the transition between eras. The New Shadow, picking up almost a quarter-millennium later, was manifesting as a much more cynical tale. As Tolkien wrote in a letter in 1972:

I have written nothing beyond the first few years of the Fourth Age. (Except the beginning of a tale supposed to refer to the end of the reign of Eldairon about 100 years after the death of Aragorn. Then I of course discovered that the King’s Peace would contain no tales worth recounting; and his wars would have little interest after the overthrow of Sauron; but that almost certainly a restlessness would appear about then, owing to the (it seems) inevitable boredom of Men with the good: there would be secret societies practising dark cults, and “orc-cults” among adolescents.) – J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 338, dated June 6, 1972

The New Shadow’s Ties To The Characters Of The Lord Of The Rings Is Tenuous

All The Familiar Faces Are Long Gone By The Time Of The New Shadow

Not only was Aragorn long ᴅᴇᴀᴅ by the time of The New Shadow, there were barely any other characters in the sequel’s draft to tie it to The Lord of the Rings. In fact, the only direct connection is that the manuscript’s main character, Borlas, is the son of Beregond.

If that name doesn’t ring any bells, it’s because Beregond is a pretty minor character; a soldier of Gondor and Guard of the Citadel, he first appeared in The Return of the King to help Pippin accommodate to his new position as a Guard. Beregond also fought alongside Pippin at the Battle of the Morannon, before the Black Gate of Mordor.

Also, pointedly absent are mentions of elves, dwarves, or hobbits, because by this time in the Fourth Age, all had retreated far away from the realms of Men. Legolas, one of the last elves to depart Middle-earth, left in F. A. 120 after Aragorn’s death, taking Gimli with him to the Undying Lands of Valinor. The hobbits of the Shire likely continued on as they always had, keeping to themselves, and the dwarves’ history in the Fourth Age was never recorded. That means The New Shadow had little by way of familiar detail for even the most die-hard LOTR fans.

The New Shadow Takes Place 100 Years After Aragorn’s Death

With The Pᴀssing Of Elessar, So Too Pᴀssed The Fellowship Of The Ring

The High King of the Reunited Kingdom of Gondor and Arnor in The New Shadow is Eldarion, son of Arwen and Elessar, who was called Aragorn. Eldarion was actually king for a full century by the time of The New Shadow, which is set in F. A. 220, and Aragorn had died in F. A. 120; Tolkien wrote that Arwen, consumed by grief by the death of her beloved, went to the abandoned forest that had been Lothórien in F. A. 121 and gave up her life rather than continue to exist without him.

The Events Of Lord Of The Rings Were To Be Seen As Just Legends By The Men Of The New Shadow

The War Of The Ring Was Just A Distant Part Of The Past To Them

Although characters in The New Shadow may have been alive at the time of the War of the Ring – Borlas, for example, could theoretically have been born around the end of the Third Age, as his lifespan as a Gondoran would likely have been several centuries – Tolkien intended the events of the War to be merely legends and campfire tales to the people of Gondor in the Fourth Age. Writing about how he felt about his progress on The New Shadow in 1964, Tolkien wrote:

I did begin a story placed about 100 years after the Downfall, but it proved both sinister and depressing. Since we are dealing with Men it is inevitable that we should be concerned with the most regrettable feature of their nature: their quick satiety with good. So that the people of Gondor in times of peace, justice and prosperity, would become discontented and restless — while the dynasts descended from Aragorn would become just kings and governors — like Denethor or worse. I found that even so early there was an outcrop of revolutionary plots, about a centre of secret Satanistic religion; while Gondorian boys were playing at being Orcs and going around doing damage. I could have written a ‘thriller’ about the plot and its discovery and overthrow — but it would have been just that. Not worth doing. – J. R. R. Tolkien, Letter 256, dated May 13, 1964

The thought of Gondoran children treating being an Orc as a game – let alone one used to justify vandalism – so soon after the disastrous War of the Ring is a sobering thought. As a scholar of history and myth, never mind a veteran of World War One, it’s no surprise Tolkien understood just how quickly the memory of humans forgets the horrors of history and lets them turn into easily-dismissed legends.

The Evil Spoken Of In The New Shadow May Have Little To Do With Sauron Or Morgoth

The Dark Tree Of Evil’s Roots Were Now Spread By Mere Men

Most of The New Shadow that Tolkien wrote concerns a conversation between Borlas and a young Gondoran man named Saelon, a friend of Borlas’ son. The two discuss the increasing unrest in the area and the potential for some kind of conspiracy underlying it all, which Borlas describes as a “dark tree” whose roots must constantly be hewed at.

While a name is given in relation to this vague evil – Herumor – no context was ever written as to who or what it was. Yet Tolkien’s letters make it clear that his thoughts for The New Shadow were trending towards it being a story of the evil that men do against each other, rather than continuing in the overall continuity of evil that began with Melkor in The Silmarillion and ended with Sauron’s defeat at the end of The Lord of the Rings.