Lord of the Rings chronology dispute settled

After many revisions, a chronology of JRR Tolkien’s beloved fantasy The Lord of the Rings by a one-man Seattle publishing house has finally passed muster with the English author’s estate.

Tolkien’s son Christopher had sued Michael Perry and his Inkling Press, claiming his attempt at a chronology of the famous trilogy was essentially a retelling of the tale.

People interested in the book “should read the original,” a spokeswoman for the family said in Oxford at the time.

But now everything is “cleared up,” Perry said. “The final settlement is signed.”

In a joint statement, both sides said that “as Mr Perry has substantially changed the book, the estate has withdrawn its objection to publication of the book, but does not approve or in any way endorse the book as published.”

Perry’s first effort was called The Lord of the Rings Diary: A Chronology of JRR Tolkien’s Best-selling Epic.

The latest version is titled Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings.

Lawyer Mel Simburg said he helped Perry restructure the book “so that it more closely fit what he was trying to do, which was to create a chronology of fictional events.”

Perry has characterised his work as a guide to ease readers through the Tolkien trilogy’s layers of time and space and myriad characters.

The wondrously complicated Ring trilogy is not written in chronological order, Simburg noted.

“One goal of Perry’s was to enable serious readers and fans of Lord of the Rings to be able to tell what was happening at different places in the same time period,” Simburg said.