The following text, translated from Westron into English, is being made available online for the first time as part of the Tuckborough Archives Digitization Project.  Following the practice established by Professor J. R. R. Tolkien in his landmark translation of the Red Book, Westron names have been translated into approximate English equivalents.  Editorial footnotes are distinguished from footnotes in the original text by italics. 

Daisy Bolger,  Fourth-Age Manuscript Production in the Shire, chapter 7: "The Red Book of Westmarch and Its Copies" (excerpt).  Tuckborough Historical Society, S.R. 1937.  

The Red Book of Westmarch is now lost, as are all direct copies from the Red Book that contained its full text.  What remain for us are only copies of copies, rife with variations, and this textual uncertainty influences all scholarship on the War of the Ring, whether or not it is openly acknowledged.  

Of the extant manuscripts descending from the Red Book of Westmarch, the most famous is that made in 1592 [1] by the Gondorian scribe Findegil, currently housed in the Tuckborough Historical Society Archives.  Findegil's manuscript also contains the earliest extant copy of Bilbo Baggins' Translations from the Elvish; it is the archetype from which all surviving manuscripts of that work descend.  Baggins completed Translations from the Elvish while living in Rivendell between 1402 and 1421. [2]  His chief sources were texts in the library of Rivendell, supplemented by firsthand oral accounts – from Elrond, Glorfindel, and potentially others [3] – of events in the First and Second Ages.  Translations from the Elvish is today one of the most important accounts of events in the First Age – though it should not be relied upon without reservation, as there are occasionally serious discrepancies between Baggins' account and those found in other sources. [4] 

Findegil writes of his own work that it is "an exact copy in all details of the Thain's Book in Minas Tirith," which was a direct copy of the Red Book that is now lost.  It is plain to anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of paleography that Findegil did not mean that his copy was a facsimile of the Thain's Book:  The Thain's Book was produced at Undertowers prior to 1584 [5] by Hobbit scribes, presumably in a Shire script, while Findegil's copy is written in second-century [6] Minas Tirith chancery script. [7] 

Findegil's assertion should be read instead to mean that he copied the text of the Thain's Book in its entirety, though this does not mean the text as originally copied from the Red Book at Undertowers.  The Thain's Book received numerous additions and emendations in Gondor.  Some of these additions are obvious, such as the portions of Tale of Aragorn and Arwen, written by Barahir [8] not long after Elessar's death, that were appended to the account of the War of the Ring.  In other, more subtle cases, Gondorian scribes appear to have emended the spelling of names and quotations in Sindarin and Quenya:  For example, where manuscripts of the Red Book copied in the Shire have Elessar call his Queen vanimalda, Findegil's copy has the correct vanimelda. 

In the Thain's Book itself, such emendations would of course have been easily discernible to the reader.  But Findegil copied the emendations seamlessly into the text, completely replacing what was there previously.  The only way to determine the extent of Gondorian scribes' intervention in the text is therefore by comparison to alternate lines of transmission through copies made entirely within the Shire.  It is therefore particularly difficult to determine how much Translations from the Elvish may have been emended in Gondor, as no surviving copies of the Red Book made in the Shire contain Translations.   

All manuscript copies of the Red Book may be grouped into two categories: those descended from Findegil's copy of the Thain's Book, and those descended from copies of the Red Book made in the Shire.  Numerous copies of the Red Book were produced at Undertowers beginning in the 1420s.  These early copies seem to have been predominantly or entirely partial, containing Bilbo Baggins' account of his journey to Dale and Frodo Baggins' account of the War of the Ring, but omitting Translations from the Elvish.  Inscriptions in some surviving copies suggest they were for the personal use of members of the Gamgee family, and all the extant Undertowers manuscripts are in a documentary rather than a chancery script, and on parchment of middling quality.

It is true that, at the time the Undertowers manuscripts were produced, scribal practices in Gondor were more sophisticated than in the Shire.  However, scholars should not – as has, unfortunately, long been the practice – assume that when Findegil's manuscript diverges from some or all of the Undertowers manuscripts, Findegil's manuscript is always the more reliable.  Modern scholars tend to assume Gondorian emendation of the Thain's Book when the Undertowers manuscripts unanimously read one way and Findegil's manuscript reads another, but when a consensus is lacking in the Undertowers manuscripts, Findegil's text is too often accepted without more than a cursory additional analysis. 

[1] Year 172 of the Fourth Age in the reckoning of the Dúnedain, 51 years after the death of Elessar. 

[2] T.A. 3002-3021.

[3] A few scholars have theorized that Baggins encountered Maglor Fëanorion while in Rivendell, but this idea has not gained widespread acceptance.  See, e.g., Primula Underbank, "The Minstrel in Our Midst" (Journal of First Age Studies, S.R. 1931). 

[4] For example, Baggins records that Gil-Galad was the son of Fingon, while most other sources have Orodreth as his father; Baggins also omits the reported death of Amrod Fëanorion at Losgar – though some have argued that all accounts of Amrod's death should be dismissed as anti-Fëanorian propaganda. 

[5] F.A. 64.

[6] Referring to the second century of the Fourth Age. 

[7] For a discussion of the characteristics of this script, of which Findegil's hand is a particularly elegant example, see Gondorian and Arnorian Chancery Scripts: A Comparative Analysis by Tuilindil of Lossarnach. 

[8] The grandson of Elessar's first steward, Faramir son of Denethor.

A digital facsimile of Findegil's copy of the Thain's Book is now available on the Tuckborough Archives website. Scholars seeking in-person access to the manuscript should contact Hildigrim Chubb to make a viewing appointment.