Jason Fisher, reviewing the book for Mythlore, said it was worth the very long wait (from 1991), describing the account as riveting. The book had three purposes: to present the earliest manuscript version; to show that it was, pace Christopher Tolkien, connected to the tradition of The Silmarillion; and to examine both Tolkien's revision of 1947 giving the familiar text, and his abandoned 1960 rewrite, which would have refashioned the whole book to bring it into greater harmony with the mood, language, and geography of The Lord of the Rings. Fisher describes the books' layout as meticulously systematic and comparable to Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth. He finds the book rich in wonderful surprises, among them that Thorin Oakenshield would have been Gandalf the Dwarf, while the Wizard of that name would have been called Bladorthin; and Tolkien considered having Bilbo Baggins the hobbit navigate Mirkwood using a ball of rolled-up spider silk like Theseus in the Minotaur's labyrinth. He enjoyed, too, the appendices with previously unpublished illustrations, including a facsimile of the Dwarves' letter which Bilbo found under the clock on his mantelpiece. For Fisher, however, the most interesting addition was the unfinished 1960 rewrite of the first three chapters, adding detail of passing through Bree, for example, but losing much of the humour. In his view, it was just as well that Tolkien abandoned the attempt. He was more critical of Rateliffe's essays, which he found generally but not uniformly illuminating and erudite. All the same, the book was in his view ambitious, brilliant, and indispensable.