HarperCollins has announced that J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Bovadium Fragments will be released on 9 October 2025.
“The End of Bovadium” (or called “The Bovadium Fragments”) was likely written in the last 1950s and early 1960s and follows on from Mr. Bliss as a comment on the use of automobiles. Humphrey Carpenter made brief reference to it in J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography: “‘The Bovadium Fragments’ (perhaps composed early in the nineteen-sixties) is a parable of the destruction of Oxford (Bovadium) by the motores manufactured by the Daemon of Vaccipratum (a reference to Lord Nuffield and his motor-works at Cowley) which block the streets, asphyxiate the inhabitants, and finally explode.”
The Bovadium Fragments was not published during Tolkien’s life, and Clyde S. Kilby explained why: “It was full of the inventiveness to be expected of Tolkien. [..] I judged that it had two elements that would make it unpublishable. One was the more than liberal use of Latin, and the other the probability that a reader’s eye would focus on its playfulness rather than its serious implications. Actually it was an early comment on the commercialization of our world.” This story was not previously published due to Christopher Tolkien’s focus on his father’s writings set in Middle-earth and Arda.
World first publication of a previously unknown short satirical fantasy by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien, and accompanied by illustrations from the author together with an essay, The Origin of Bovadium, by Richard Ovenden OBE. – HarperCollins
Chris Smith, Tolkien Publishing Director, described The Bovadium Fragments as “a sharply satirical account of the perils of allowing car production and machine-worship to take over your town, where things ultimately all go to hell, in a very literal sense”. Richard Ovenden, author of “The Origin of Bovadium”, said: “Tolkien was deeply affected by the way that the motor industry was changing his city, and that shines through.”
Tolkien was a skilled author with ability far beyond fantasy literature. We know from The Lord of the Rings that Tolkien clearly has healthy scepticism for industrialism and a deep appreciation and affection for the environment in general and trees in particular. This beautiful nugget reveals Tolkien’s ability for satire, as well as Tolkien’s comment on industrialisation and environmental concerns. In some ways this follows the same theme – some of which is visible in Mr. Bliss – but in other ways this very different indeed. – Shaun Gunner, CEO of The Tolkien Society
The Bovadium Fragments will be published in hardback in the UK by HarperCollins on 9 October 2025. It will be published in the USA by William Morrow on 18 November 2025. The cover art is by Emily Langford based on the image “King’s Norton from Bilberry Hill” by J.R.R. Tolkien.
