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This version published in 2025 includes a new foreword by the author.

Good grief, I am not sure if I want to read about someone who is such a massive idiot as Henderson but I'm 93 pages in and will keep going because I hate giving up on books. I think William Boyd's novels vary in quality massively and so far this one is not looking that promising.

"Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule." (Gandalph, p913).

"Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

(Gandalph, p913).

"All the lands were grey and still, and ever the shadow deepened before them, and hope waned in every heart".

My Harper Collins edition is missing 32 pages, pp101 to 132 . The action skips from Pippin to Merry.

"And then black despair came down on him, and Sam bowed to the ground, and drew his grey hood over his head, and night came into his heart, and be knew no more." (p758).

" 'All is lost. Even if my errand is performed, no one will ever know. There will be no one I can tell. It will be in vain.' Overcome with weakness he wept. And still the host of Morgul crossed the bridge." (p734).

"Slowly Gollum raised his eyes and looked unwillingly into Faramir's. All light went out of them, and they stared bleak and pale for a moment into the clear unwavering eyes of the man of Gondor. There was a still silence." (p717)

"The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about." (p657) Frodo, Sam and Gollum reach Mordor.

'They cried and wailed, for fear and great wonder had come upon them with the raising of the day.' (p564).

"The thought of those merry young folk driven like cattle burns my heart". Legolas (p445).