# The Adventures of Tom Bombadil
*The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book* is a collection of 16 poems by [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.edgepedia.org/j-r-r-tolkien), first published in the United Kingdom on 22 November 1962 and presented, through a fictional preface, as verses translated from the Red Book of Westmarch, the hobbit manuscript that also serves as the supposed source of *The Hobbit* and *The Lord of the Rings*.[1](https://books.digitaltolkien.com/work/tom-bombadil/) • [2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) • [3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) The book was illustrated by Pauline Baynes, who had previously illustrated Tolkien's *Farmer Giles of Ham* (1949).[1](https://books.digitaltolkien.com/work/tom-bombadil/) • [4](https://pbfa-v2.whattheframework.co.uk/books/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-verses-from-the-red-book)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First publication | 22 November 1962, George Allen & Unwin, London; Houghton Mifflin followed in the United States in 1963[1](https://books.digitaltolkien.com/work/tom-bombadil/) • [5](https://tolkienlibrary.com/booksbytolkien/adventuresoftb/description.php) |
| Contents | 16 poems, framed as hobbit verses from the Red Book of Westmarch[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) • [3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) |
| Illustrator | Pauline Baynes (1962 and 2014 editions); Roger Garland for the 1990s reissues[1](https://books.digitaltolkien.com/work/tom-bombadil/) |
| Origin of the title poem | Published in the *Oxford Magazine* in February 1934, revised for the 1962 collection[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) |
| First-edition impressions | Nine impressions between 1962 and 1975; the first printed 10,600 copies[6](https://tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=537) |
| Expanded edition | 2014, edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, 296 pages, with earlier versions of 13 poems[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) |
| Audio recording | Six poems read by Tolkien on *Poems and Songs of Middle Earth* (Caedmon Records, 1967)[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) |
## Origin of the character and title poem
[Tom Bombadil](https://www.edgepedia.org/tom-bombadil) began as a family joke. He was the name of a Dutch doll belonging to Michael, Tolkien's second son; Michael's elder brother John disliked the doll and one day tried to stuff it down the lavatory, but the doll survived and became the subject of a poem.[3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" was published in the *Oxford Magazine* in February 1934, twenty years before *The Lord of the Rings* appeared.[3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) • [2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) Sources differ on the exact day, giving 13 February or 15 February 1934.[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) • [7](https://www2.mu.edu/library/archives/Mss/JRRT/JRRT-series7.php)
The poem recounts how Tom, walking in the Old Forest, is drawn in by Goldberry, trapped or annoyed by Old Man Willow, a family of badgers, birds, fish, and a barrow-wight, and frees himself each time by ordering the creatures away in rhyme; it ends with his marriage to Goldberry.[8](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tom_Bombadil_%28poem%29) These encounters later fed directly into the "Bombadil chapters" of *The Lord of the Rings*, where Old Man Willow and the barrow-wight play a central part in the hobbits' first adventures after leaving the Shire.[3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) In December 1937, about three months after *The Hobbit* was published, Tolkien wrote to Stanley Unwin proposing the poem for publication; Unwin's son Rayner replied that *The Hobbit* was already successful and suggested instead a story of Old Took's great-grand-uncle Bullroarer as a continuation. Neither that story nor a prose tale of Tom Bombadil was written, and the character was introduced into *The Lord of the Rings* instead.[9](https://ilab.org/assets/catalogues/Tolkien.pdf)
## The 1961 proposal and the making of the book
The collection itself traces to October 1961, when Tolkien's elderly aunt Jane Neave asked him to "get out a small book with Tom Bombadil at the heart of it", of a size and price that older people could afford as Christmas presents.[10](https://www.elfenomeno.com/en/info/ver/16364/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil) • [4](https://pbfa-v2.whattheframework.co.uk/books/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-verses-from-the-red-book) Tolkien rummaged through his papers for poems, mostly written before 1940, and suggested to his editor Rayner Unwin that the 1934 poem be reissued with new illustrations.[3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) • [10](https://www.elfenomeno.com/en/info/ver/16364/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil)
Because the verses were now to appear as hobbit writings, Tolkien revised them to fit the world of *The Lord of the Rings*. In the title poem he changed a peacock's feather in Tom's hat to a swan-wing feather, an alteration the illustrator Pauline Baynes noticed while working on the pictures, and for which Tolkien apologized.[8](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tom_Bombadil_%28poem%29) To lend unity to an otherwise loose assortment of poems, he wrote a pseudo-scholarly preface detailing the fictitious origins of each piece as excerpts from the Red Book.[3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/) This preface supplies background found nowhere else, such as the name of the tower at Dol Amroth and the names of the Seven Rivers of Gondor.[11](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Adventures_of_bombadil)
## Contents
The 16 poems fall into several groups: three about Tom Bombadil himself, one about a hobbit and a troll, two about the [Man in the Moon](https://www.edgepedia.org/man-in-the-moon), six "adventures", and four in the nature of a bestiary.[5](https://tolkienlibrary.com/booksbytolkien/adventuresoftb/description.php) Several are attributed within the fiction to named hobbits: "Errantry" to [Bilbo Baggins](https://www.edgepedia.org/bilbo-baggins), whose meter resembles his song of Eärendil in *The Lord of the Rings*, and "Oliphaunt" and "Perry-the-Winkle" to [Samwise Gamgee](https://www.edgepedia.org/samwise-gamgee).[10](https://www.elfenomeno.com/en/info/ver/16364/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil) • [12](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781135880347_A23809959/preview-9781135880347_A23809959.pdf) The poems are mainly concerned with legends and jests of the Shire at the end of the Third Age.[13](https://www.harperreach.com/products/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-j-r-r-tolkien-9780008700195/)
Many pieces had long independent histories. "Errantry" first appeared in the *Oxford Magazine* on 9 November 1933 and later developed into Bilbo's "Lay of Eärendil"; "Looney" (18 January 1934) was revised as "The Sea-Bell"; "Fíriel" (1934) became "The Last Ship"; and "Fastitocalon" was published in the *Stapeldon Magazine* in 1927.[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) • [14](https://forodrim.org/arda/tbchron.html) Of the collection's poems, "Cat" was written in 1956, and "Bombadil goes boating" was written especially for the book; these two have no previous versions.[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) Tolkien himself judged "The Sea-Bell" the poorest poem in the collection, though the poet [W. H. Auden](https://www.edgepedia.org/w-h-auden) praised it highly.[3](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/)
## Publication history
The book appeared on 22 November 1962, in time for the [Christmas market](https://www.edgepedia.org/christmas-market).[9](https://ilab.org/assets/catalogues/Tolkien.pdf) The first edition ran through nine impressions between 1962 and 1975: the first printed 10,600 copies, the second 5,000 (with "Cat" moved to follow "Fastitocalon" in the poem order), and the third 7,500 in 1968.[6](https://tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=537) A bibliographical quirk marks later printings: impressions from 1969 to 1975 erroneously state that the first impression was issued in 1961.[6](https://tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=537) In 1967 Tolkien read six of the poems for the Caedmon Records LP *Poems and Songs of Middle Earth*, backed with Donald Swann's song cycle *The Road Goes Ever On*.[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) • [15](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Poems_and_Songs_of_Middle_Earth)
Later British editions include a 1990 hardback and paperback from Unwin Hyman and Unwin Paperbacks with cover art by Roger Garland, paperback reissues from Grafton (1993) and [HarperCollins](https://www.edgepedia.org/harpercollins) (1995), a 1993 miniature edition illustrated with Tolkien's own pictures, some colored by H. E. Riddett, a 2014 HarperCollins hardback that had reached a 17th impression, and a 2024 paperback.[1](https://books.digitaltolkien.com/work/tom-bombadil/)
## The 2014 expanded edition
A revised and expanded edition, edited by the Tolkien scholars Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, was published by HarperCollins on 9 October 2014, running to 296 pages under ISBN 978-0-00-755727-1.[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) It reprints Baynes's illustrations and adds an introduction by the editors, earlier published versions from the 1920s and 1930s of 13 poems with textual notes, a previously unpublished text "The Bumpus" (written around 1928) as the predecessor of "Perry-the-Winkle", a later Bombadil poem "Once upon a Time", and the complete fragment of a prose story featuring Tom Bombadil.[2](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html) • [11](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Adventures_of_bombadil) • [13](https://www.harperreach.com/products/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-j-r-r-tolkien-9780008700195/) The editorial notes place each poem in its context of composition and show Tolkien's working method of recovering older texts, reworking their language, and adapting them to a common narrative framework.[10](https://www.elfenomeno.com/en/info/ver/16364/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil)
## References
1. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Tolkien Books Database (Digital Tolkien Project)](https://books.digitaltolkien.com/work/tom-bombadil/)
2. [A chronological bibliography of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien (Hammond & Anderson data, Forodrim)](https://forodrim.org/bibliography/tbchron%288th_ed%29.html)
3. [Daniel Lauzon, 'The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and other poetry', The Tolkien Estate](https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-poetry/)
4. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from The Red Book, PBFA book description](https://pbfa-v2.whattheframework.co.uk/books/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-and-other-verses-from-the-red-book)
5. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Tolkien Library](https://tolkienlibrary.com/booksbytolkien/adventuresoftb/description.php)
6. [TolkienBooks.net, Adventures of Tom Bombadil, 1962](https://tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=537)
7. [J.R.R. Tolkien Collection, Series 7, Raynor Memorial Libraries, Marquette University](https://www2.mu.edu/library/archives/Mss/JRRT/JRRT-series7.php)
8. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (poem), Tolkien Gateway](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tom_Bombadil_%28poem%29)
9. [Tolkien sale catalogue, ILAB](https://ilab.org/assets/catalogues/Tolkien.pdf)
10. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Fenopaedia (Elfenomeno)](https://www.elfenomeno.com/en/info/ver/16364/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil)
11. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Tolkien Gateway](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Adventures_of_bombadil)
12. [Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Routledge Companion preview), pageplace](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781135880347_A23809959/preview-9781135880347_A23809959.pdf)
13. [The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, HarperReach (HarperCollins)](https://www.harperreach.com/products/the-adventures-of-tom-bombadil-j-r-r-tolkien-9780008700195/)
14. [A chronological bibliography of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, Forodrim (earlier edition)](https://forodrim.org/arda/tbchron.html)
15. [Poems and Songs of Middle Earth, Tolkien Gateway](https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Poems_and_Songs_of_Middle_Earth)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Poetry works › Poetry collections and anthologies › Named poetry collections by individual authors*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license