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The ninth book in the History of Middle-earth series. It discusses the development of the last books of The Lord of the Rings. It includes an unpublished epilog with a lengthy letter written in Sindarin from Aragorn to Samwise, the longest available work in that language. This book also includes considerable unpublished writings on the Adûnaic language, including an unfinished story the “The Notion Club Papers” with the only significant samples of Adûnaic writing and an unfinished phonetic and grammatical discussion of that language entitled “Lowdham’s Report on the Adunaic Language.”
The assignment of languages in this volume is somewhat problematic. Most of the material was composed before Tolkien introduced Sindarin as a replacement for Noldorin, which in the terminology of this lexicon puts it into Tolkien’s Middle Period. Therefore, most of the references from the book have been assigned to Noldorin (N) and Middle Quenya (ᴹQ). Christopher Tolkien occasionally referred to later typescripts and notes in the final proofs, however, and these are assigned to Sindarin (S) and Late Quenya (Q). I also assume that the second version of the Epilogue (p. 121-135) belongs in the Late Period, mostly because Tolkien made the phonetic change of (Noldorin) ai to (Sindarin) ae (SD/135, note #18).
Needs review.