— Ch. 1 · Appendix Placement And Purpose —
The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen.
~7 min read · Ch. 1 of 7
J. R. R. Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings in 1954 and 1955, placing a story about Aragorn and Arwen within its appendices rather than the main narrative. This decision puzzled many readers who expected the romance to be woven into the central plot. In a letter dated the 6th of April 1956 to his publisher Rayner Unwin, Tolkien stated that this tale was the only part of the Appendices that was "really essential to the story." He explained that the main text is told from the hobbits' point of view, which naturally excludes deep exploration of Aragorn's relationships or Arwen's background until their marriage at the end. Publishers sometimes tried to cut these sections entirely, such as during the first Swedish edition between 1959 and 1961 known as Sagan om ringen. Tolkien insisted on keeping the tale because it provided necessary context for understanding events in the main book. The first one-volume edition released in 1968 omitted all other appendices except for this specific story. Christopher Tolkien later traced the evolution of the tale through unpublished manuscripts in the twelfth volume of The History of Middle-earth. He found evidence of an abandoned experiment where the author had attempted to insert the story directly into a history of the North Kingdom before settling on the appendix format.
Frame Story And Narrative Voice
In the fictional universe created by J. R. R. Tolkien, the account of Aragorn and Arwen was written after Aragorn's death by Barahir, grandson of Faramir and Éowyn. An abbreviated version appeared in the copy of the Thain's Book made by Findegil. Scholar Giuseppe Pezzini notes that this meta-textual frame harmonizes with formal features throughout the text, including scribal glosses and editorial references matching the elaborate textual history detailed in the Note on the Shire Records. Christine Barkley examines how the narrative voice functions within this structure, considering the main part of the tale narrated by Aragorn himself. This creates a layered perspective where the reader encounters the story as both historical record and personal testimony. The framing device allows the tale to exist outside the immediate timeline of the hobbits' journey while remaining connected to their world. It establishes a sense of historical depth similar to Dante's approach in his Inferno. The narrative voice shifts between the distant past of the Third Age and the present moment of writing, creating a bridge between fiction and recorded history. This technique emphasizes the importance of memory and legacy in Middle-earth society.