After rewatching The Lord of the Rings trilogy, it’s easy to wish that there was more to the story. Sure, the books offer a lot more detail in terms of story and character than the films have time to, but even that remains a self-contained tale. Now that Warner Bros. is pursuing a series of stories to expand the Middle-earth universe (such as The Hunt for Gollum film and the anime prequel War of the Rohirrim), it’s worth noting that there was once a time when J.R.R. Tolkien himself once pursued a sequel to his epic saga. Yes, you read that right, Tolkien did indeed work on a Lord of the Rings sequel before he died, one that he abandoned long before completion…
‘The New Shadow’ Would Have Picked Up Over a Hundred Years After The Lord of the Rings

Image via New Line Cinema

Considering that The Lord of the Rings is technically a sequel to The Hobbit, perhaps it’s not surprising that Tolkien had ideas for another story set after Sauron’s destruction and Aragorn’s rise to power in the Reunited Kingdoms. Called The New Shadow, the tale was set at a time when Aragorn’s son, Eldarion, was the king, over 100 years after the War of the Ring (as well as after Aragorn’s death) in the Fourth Age. With the Elves gone and Men left to decide the fate of Middle-earth, the sequel would have uncovered a Satanic-like plot that dealt with certain Gondorians who became disillusioned with the peacetime post-the One Ring. Few still remember the War of the Ring themselves, and only folks like Borlas, who were children at the time, have even the slightest remembrance of it.

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In total, Tolkien wrote only 13 pages, a single chapter, of his New Shadow manuscript, which would be published posthumously by his son Christopher in the pages of The Peoples of Middle-earth. This chapter follows a conversation between Borlas and a younger man named Saelon (a friend of Borlas’ son Berelach). Borlas believes that evil still lies within the hearts of Men, comparing it to a “Dark Tree” of sorts. Saelon, however, shifts the conversation to the people, noting that many in Gondor have become anxious in a way they haven’t since Aragorn was king. The term Herumor is referenced as well, though it’s unclear what exactly it means other than being connected to the same dark cult Tolkien was planning to expand on. However, the professor never got that far, as he abandoned the project after only this single chapter.
Tolkien Didn’t Believe a Lord of the Rings Sequel Was Worth Pursuing

Ultimately, though Tolkien began his tale centering on these two new characters, he quickly put the concept out of his mind. “I could have written a ‘thriller’ about the [Satanistic] plot and its discovery and overthrow,” Tolkien once explained in a 1964 letter designated Letter 256 (as collected in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien), “but it would have been just that. Not worth doing.” It’s interesting to note that, in this particular letter, Tolkien dates The New Shadow as taking place 100 years after the Downfall of Mordor. He also divulges a bit more of the plot, noting that many young Gondorian men found themselves “playing at being Orcs,” with others becoming far worse than Denethor. “It proved both sinister and depressing,” he explained.

Nearly a decade later, in 1972 (shortly before his death a year later), Tolkien once more wrote about The New Shadow. When answering a question about the Entwives, Tolkien wrote in Letter 338 that, “I have written nothing beyond the first few years of the Fourth Age.” Here, the professor explains that the sequel would have been set 100 years after Aragorn’s death, rather than the One Ring’s destruction (Aragorn lived 123 years after these events). Considering that Borlas seems to remember something of the War of the Ring, it’s possible that this was a mistake on Tolkien’s part, or that he pondered for years on The New Shadow, wondering if he could make it work. “Then I of course discovered that the King’s Peace would contain no tales worth recounting,” Tolkien noted, “and his wars would have little interest after the overthrow of Sauron.” He goes on to describe many of the same plot points about secret Orc-like cults that he detailed years earlier.
As great as it may have been to revisit Middle-earth in the years after The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien made the right call here. Ending his fantasy epic on a particularly high note, with the crowning of Aragorn, the final battle for the Shire, and the Elves departing for the Gray Havens, feels complete. No matter how much we would have liked to see how The New Shadow played out, there was never a need for this sort of “thriller,” as Tolkien called it. It turns out, we will have to be content with the story of Frodo and where that tale ends.