In the first section of 'Sauron Defeated' Christopher Tolkien completes his fascinating study
of 'The Lord of the Rings'. Beginning with Sam's rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol
and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire this section ends with
versions of the hitherto unpublished 'Epilogue' in which years after the departure of Bilbo
and Frodo from the Grey Havens Sam attempts to answer his children's questions. The second
section is an edition of 'The Notion Club Papers' now published for the first time. These
mysterious papers discovered in the early years of the twentieth-first century report the
discussions of an Oxford club in the years 1986-7 in which after a number of topics the
centre of interest turns to the legends of Atlantis the strange communications received by
other members of the club from the past and the violent irruption of the legend into the
North-west of Europe. Closely associated with the 'Papers' is a new version of the 'Drowning of
Anadune' which constitutes the third part of the book. At this time the language of the Men of
the West 'Adunaic' was first devised and the book concludes with an account of its structure
provided by Arundel Lowdham a member of the Notion Club who learned it in his dreams.
