The Return of the Shadow. Christopher Tolkien
hobbits), were inherited by Bingo Bolger-Baggins.
Bingo was a mere youngster of thirty-nine and had hardly cut his wisdom-teeth; but he at once began to carry on his uncle’s reputation for oddity. He refused to go into mourning, and within a week gave a birthday-party – for himself and his uncle (their birthdays happened to be on the same day). At first people were shocked, but he kept up the custom year after year, until they got used to it. He said he did not think Bilbo Baggins was dead. When they asked the obvious question: ‘Where is he then?’ he merely winked. He lived alone, and was often away from home. He went about a good deal with the least well-behaved members of the Took family (his grandmother’s people); and he was also fond of the Brandybucks (his mother’s relatives).
Anyway, Bingo Bolger-Baggins had been the master of Bag-end Underhill now for thirty-three years without doing anything outrageous. His parties were sometimes a bit noisy …
With Gorboduc Brandybuck and Mirabella Took (one of ‘the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took’ who had been mentioned in The Hobbit) the genealogy now becomes that of LR, except that Primula Brandybuck’s husband (Bilbo in the third version) is Rollo Bolger, not Drogo Baggins; and the boating accident reappears (see p. 25, note 2).
From here to the end the typescript follows the third version (as emended) very closely, and there is little further to add. Bilbo becomes Bingo’s ‘uncle’ throughout, of course; Bingo was liable to allude to ‘the absurd adventures of his “gallant and famous” uncle’ (see p. 32). But, with this change, Bingo’s remarks in his speech on the ages of himself and his uncle and the number of guests at the party remain exactly the same, and ‘The ring was his uncle’s parting gift’ (ibid.).
Small changes of wording move the text towards the final form in FR; for example, where in the third version Rory Brandybuck is described as ‘well-filled but still brighter than many’, it is now said of him that his ‘wits neither old age, nor surprise, nor an enormous dinner, had quite clouded’. But to set out even a portion of such developments in expression between closely related versions would obviously be quite impracticable. There are however a few minor narrative shifts which I collect in the following notes, with page-references indicating where the relevant passages in earlier versions are to be found.
(30) Gaffer Gamgee had a little more to say:
‘… A very nice well-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr Bolger-Baggins, as I’ve always said.’ And that was perfectly true; for Bingo had always been very polite to Gaffer Gamgee, calling him Mr Gamgee, and discussing potatoes with him over the hedge.
(21, 31) The day of the party now becomes Thursday (not Saturday) 22 September (a change made to the typescript, but carefully over an erasure and clearly belonging to the time of typing).
(31) There is no further reference to Gandalf in the chapter, after the fireworks.
(24, 32) The young hobbits who danced on the table are Prospero Took and Melissa Brandybuck.
(32–3) Several names are changed among the recipients of gifts from Bag End, Caramella (Took >) Bolger becomes Caramella Chubb; the comatose Rollo Took-Took becomes Fosco Bolger (and is Bingo’s uncle); Inigo Grubb-Took the glutton, who had survived from the first draft, is now Inigo Grubb; and Cosimo Chubb the barometer-tapper becomes Cosimo Hornblower.
(33) It is now added that ‘The poorer hobbits did very well, especially old Gaffer Gamgee, who got about half a ton of potatoes’; that Bingo had a collection of magical toys; and that he and his friends drank nearly all the wine, the remainder still going to Marmaduke Brandybuck.
(16, 33) The legal notice in the hall at Bag End is extended, and followed by a new passage:
Bingo Bolger-Baggins Esqre. departing hereby devises delivers and makes over by free gift the desirable property and messuage or dwelling-hole known as Bag-end Underhill with all lands thereto belonging and annexed to Otho Sackville-Baggins Esqre. and his wife Lobelia for them jointly to have hold possess occupy let on lease or otherwise dispose of at their pleasure as from September the twenty fourth in the seventy second year of the aforesaid Bingo Bolger-Baggins and the one hundred and forty fourth year of Bilbo Baggins who as former rightful owners hereby relinquish all claims to the above said property as from the date aforesaid.
The notice was signed Bingo Bolger-Baggins for self and uncle. Bingo was not a lawyer, and he merely put things that way to please Otho Sackville-Baggins, who was a lawyer. Otho certainly was pleased, but whether by the language or the property is difficult to say. Anyway, as soon as he had read the notice he shouted: ‘Ours at last!’ So I suppose it was all right, at least according to the legal notions of hobbits. And that is how the Sackville-Bagginses got Bag-end in the end, though they had to wait ninety-three years longer for it than they had once expected.
(33) The lawyers who ejected Sancho Proudfoot do not appear.
An addition is made to the passage describing the character of the Tooks: ‘and since they had inherited both enormous wealth and no little courage from the Old Took, they carried things off with a pretty high hand at times.’
(34) The reference to Bilbo’s having ‘done a bit of spending in fifty years’ was changed; the text now reads: ‘– what was left him by his Uncle, that is; for Bilbo had done a bit of spending in his time.’
‘A few were distressed at his sudden disappearance; one or two were not distressed, because they were in the know – but they were not at Bag-end.’
Thus it is never explained why Bingo (or Bilbo in the first version), for whom money was now a severe problem (and one of the reasons for his departure), simply handed over ‘the desirable property known as Bag-end’ to the Sackville-Bagginses ‘by free gift’.
There were further twists still to come in this amazingly sinuous evolution before the final structure was reached, but this was how the opening chapter stood for some time, and Bingo Bolger-Baggins, ‘nephew’ or more properly first cousin once removed of Bilbo Baggins, is present throughout the original form of Book I of The Fellowship of the Ring. I set out briefly here the major shifts and stages encountered thus far.
A Long-expected party
| Version I | Bilbo gives the party, aged 70. (‘I am going to tell you a story about one of his descendants’) |
| Version II | Bilbo gives the party, aged 71. |
| Version III | Bilbo married, and disappeared from Hobbiton with his wife (Primula Brandybuck) when he was 111. |
| His son Bingo Baggins gives the party, aged 72. | |
| Version IV | Bilbo, unmarried, adopted his young cousin Bingo Bolger (son of Primula Brandybuck), changed his |