One of the books making up the recorded histories of the land of Gondor. It was a counterpart of the Book of the Kings, and so the Book of the Stewards presumably followed the history of the land after the loss of its last King and the rise of its first Ruling Steward, Mardil Voronwë. Mardil took up the rule of Gondor in the year III 2050, so the chronicles of the Book of the Stewards would have spanned very nearly the last thousand years of the Third Age.
Alongside the Book of the Kings and Akallabêth, the tale of the Downfall of Númenor, the Book of the Stewards was made available by King Elessar to Frodo Baggins and Peregrin Took after the War of the Ring. It was thereby collected into the Red Book, the tale of the history of the War of the Ring, and so formed part of the background material preserved in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings.2
Notes
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This assumes that the Book of the Stewards related specifically to the Ruling Stewards. As it was a companion volume to the Book of Kings, this would seem likely. In principle, however, it might have listed the earlier Stewards who served the Kings of Gondor. In that case, it might have dated back to the time of King Rómendacil I, who appointed the first Steward during his reign (III 492 - III 541).
After the War of the Ring, the Stewards no longer ruled in Gondor, and so we might expect the Book to have come to an end at that point. The role of Steward continued to exist, however, and so it is conceivable that entries might have been added to the Book for Steward Faramir and his descendants, into the Fourth Age.
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The earliest editions of The Lord of the Rings specifically mentioned the Book of the Stewards as one of the sources behind Appendix A, Annals of the Kings and Rulers. Tolkien later revised the Appendix to remove that specific reference, which might be taken to suggest a redaction of the Book of the Stewards from the narrative. The chronicles of Gondor are nonetheless mentioned elsewhere, if in a more general sense. The Prologue to The Lord of the Rings mentions 'manuscripts written by scribes of Gondor' and 'histories and legends relating to Elendil and his heirs', so at least the idea of the Book does seems to have been retained.
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- Updated 26 March 2022
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