Roverandom is Tolkien’s children’s story about a toy dog transformed into a real dog.
Tolkien created the story in 1925 after his young son Michael lost a favorite toy dog on a beach. To comfort him, Tolkien invented an adventure for Rover, the toy dog, who is transformed by a wizard and travels through several fantastic settings.
The story takes Rover to the Moon and beneath the sea, where he encounters magical creatures and characters. Tolkien did not publish it during his lifetime. Christopher Tolkien edited the surviving manuscript, and Roverandom appeared in book form in 1998. The work is separate from Middle-earth, but it demonstrates the same combination of linguistic play, mythology, humor, and detailed invented history found in Tolkien’s larger fiction.