A set of maps that chronicles the journeys taken by Frodo and the Company of the Ring through the Lord of the Rings.

I first picked this book up years after first reading The Lord of the Rings. I did not use it the second time that I read the books, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why that was so.

This is an indispensable book when reading The Lord of the Rings. The next best thing is The Atlas of Middle-Earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad, which takes into account all of the travels and wars of all the ages. For the travels of Frodo and the Company of the Ring, however, this is more than enough, and is better in some ways.

The book is comprised of fifty maps, some small scale in which we see long segments of their travels, others much larger scale, in which we might see only a few days at a time. The maps are drawn in black and red, with the path of the travelers covered by a thick red line. We are given the dates on which each of the travelers passed over certain landmarks. The author used not only the text description in The Lord of the Rings and the Appendices, but other sources, such as The Silmarillion and especially Unfinished Tales.

While traveling through the shire, and indeed for most of the Fellowship of the Ring, the guide is not really necessary, as the map at the front of that book, leading close to Bree, is enough for most of what we need. But even the trip through the Old Forest was much better visualized with these maps, to give the reader a better idea of why the hobbits were traveling so far from the East Road. The maps become essential when the group tries to go over the mountains above Moria. At that point, even though the descriptions in the text were very clear, the trip back down into Eregion was confusing. These maps made everything clear.

Once we get into The Two Towers, there are suddenly three groups of people to follow, and they seem to cover so much of Middle-Earth, back and forth sometimes! The maps gave very clear routes for each party. I found it most helpful when Frodo and Sam were traveling around Mordor, through Ithilien. There were many stops and hidden ways that this kind of guide was much more useful than the small-scale maps at the back of the book.

The Return of the King, however, is where the maps really become the most useful. The Company of the Ring is split into so many smaller groups that I didn't know where they were going, as it seemed to me that everybody was going south, but along different routes. The maps made Aragorn's trip through the Paths of the Dead much more understandable, especially as I had forgotten how large the lands of Gondor west of Minas Tirith actually were. Helm's Deep and Dunharrow seemed like a roundabout way of gathering the forces of Rohan until I understood better what the region looked like.

Frodo and Sam's journey through Mordor looks even more roundabout when looking at the maps. In the text it is not clear how far out of their way they actually traveled. Here, it shows how after deciding not to take the straightest and most direct (and thus more dangerous) path to Mount Doom, they got caught in a ravine until they ended up so close to the Black Gate! Then they were caught by the orc-host, and when they escaped, they needed to make their way back again.

Each map is accompanied by a short text describing the paths taken, or the reasons why the author made the maps the way she did. She explains any apparent conflicts in distances in the text, as well as all the assumptions that she had to make. I find the text to be the weakest part of the book, as there could have been so much more discussion.

The Atlas of Middle-Earth, by Karen Wynn Fonstad, seems like an obvious extension to this book, and contains so much more detail, but it also adds more complexity, which sometimes makes it more difficult to read as a series of maps. The Journeys of Frodo are more direct, and keep everything very simple.

Although the text could have used more substance, the maps are indispensable as an aid to reading The Lord of the Rings.