What was the title of J.R.R. Tolkien’s abandoned sequel to The Lord of the Rings?

J.R.R. Tolkien’s abandoned sequel to The Lord of the Rings was titled The New Shadow.

Tolkien began the sequel after completing The Lord of the Rings, setting it during the reign of Eldarion, the son of Aragorn and Arwen. The surviving material is very short: Tolkien wrote only a few pages before abandoning the project. The fragment is associated with the Fourth Age, after the defeat of Sauron and the restoration of the kingdoms of Men.

The story’s premise differed from the main trilogy’s large-scale war against a dark lord. It concerned a new generation in Gondor and the growth of secretive, discontented movements. Tolkien concluded that the idea did not provide enough depth or narrative force to sustain a full sequel.

The title is sometimes confused with later fan works or with descriptions of the shadow that remains after Sauron’s defeat. The New Shadow is Tolkien’s own unfinished project, not a completed novel and not an official continuation published in his lifetime. Christopher Tolkien discussed the fragment in The Peoples of Middle-earth, part of The History of Middle-earth series.