Read the story on the days it happens
The Lord of the Rings keeps a careful calendar. Frodo leaves Bag End on September 23, reaches Rivendell on October 20, and the Ring goes into the fire on March 25. This site gives you, each night, the pages that happen on that night, so you travel at the story’s own pace.
How the year runs
- Sept 15–21, the Prologue week. The Foreword, the Prologue and the first chapters, a little each night.
- Sept 22 to April 8, the quest. Every chapter on the date it happens. Some nights are a few lines, some an hour.
- April 9–30, the road home. A chapter or so a night to the end.
- May to mid-September, between years. On this day in the Tale of Years, and a countdown to the next reading year.
Getting the book
Any edition works. The site never uses page numbers: each night tells you where to start and where to stop, with the first and last few words if you want them.
| Edition | ISBN-13 |
|---|---|
| US one-volume paperback (Mariner, 2012) | 9780544003415 |
| US 50th Anniversary one-volume hardcover | 9780618645619 |
| Del Rey mass market: The Fellowship of the Ring / The Two Towers / The Return of the King | 9780345339706 / 9780345339713 / 9780345339737 |
| Del Rey four-book boxed set (with The Hobbit) | 9780345538376 |
| UK HarperCollins one-volume paperback | 9780261103252 |
The two switches
Hide what’s ahead is on unless you turn it off. Days you haven’t reached are blurred, and the map, the people and the events wait until the story tells you about them. Turn it off on a reread.
Gentle pace spreads the long nights over the days around them, so no night is much over half an hour. You may be up to a week ahead of or behind the story; the page says which.
Sources
- The dates come from Tolkien’s own chronology: Appendix B (The Tale of Years) and Appendix D (The Shire Calendar), with the day-by-day detail of his time-scheme as published in Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion.
- Distances and routes are checked against Karen Wynn Fonstad, The Atlas of Middle-earth. The map on this site is our own drawing.
- The moon each night follows the time-scheme’s moons in Hammond and Scull.
An unofficial fan project
Ever On and On is made by a reader, for readers. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Tolkien Estate, the Tolkien Trust, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt or Middle-earth Enterprises. The Lord of the Rings is J.R.R. Tolkien’s; please read it in a copy you own or borrow. The only words of the book here are the few at the start and end of each night’s reading.
Contact
Found a wrong date or a stop that doesn’t land? Write to hello at everonandon dot com.
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