Christopher Tolkien

"The tales of The Silmarillion were the underlying inspiration and source of J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginative writing; he worked on the book throughout his life but never brought it to a final form. Long preceding in its origins The Lord of the Rings, it is the story of the First Age of Tolkien's world, the ancient drama to which characters in The Lord of the Rings look back and in which some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part." "The Silmarillion...

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron. It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion...

The first publication of a previously unknown narrative poem by J.R.R. Tolkien, which tells the extraordinary story of the final days of England's legendary hero, King Arthur.

A New York Times bestseller for twenty-one weeks upon publication, Unfinished Tales is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and further relates events as told in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. The book concentrates on the lands of Middle-earth and comprises Gandalf's lively account of how he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End, the story...

In The War of the Ring Christopher Tolkien takes up the story of the writing of The Lord of the Rings with the Battle of Helm's Deep and the drowning of Isengard by the Ents. This is followed by an account of how Frodo, Sam and Gollum were finally brought to the Pass of Kirith Ungol, at which point J.R.R. Tolkien wrote at the time: 'I have got the hero into such a fix that not even an author will be able to extricate him without labour and difficulty'....