The History of Middle-earth Box Set #1: The Silmarillion / Unfinished Tales / Book of Lost Tales, Part One / Book of Lost Tales, Part Two

The History of Middle-Earth #1-2

by J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (Editor)

First in a series of hardcover box sets celebrating the literary achievement of Christopher Tolkien, featuring double-sided dustjackets. Set 1 contains special editions of THE SILMARILLION and UNFINISHED TALES reproducing the first edition text, together with the two volumes of THE BOOK OF LOST TALES. The Silmarillion  is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s World. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in  The Lord of the Rings  look back, and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The tales of  The Silmarillion  are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor. Unfinished Tales  is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth and the rise of Númenor in the Second Age to the end of the War of the Ring, and provides those who have read  The Hobbit  and  The Lord of the Rings  with a whole collection of background and new stories from the twentieth century’s most acclaimed popular author. The Book of Lost Tales  stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor for the  Tales  were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called  The Silmarillion . Embedded in English legend and English association, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriol to the lonely Isle where the Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the two volumes of the  Tales  are found the earliest accounts of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of the geography and cosmology of Tolkien’s invented world. Published together for the first time, these four books collect the beginning of Christopher Tolkien’s forty-year career devoted to presenting his father J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth, a unique accomplishment that celebrates the greatest invented world in all of fantasy literature.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction

1536 pages, Hardcover

First published December 7, 2023

About the author

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.

Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.

Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.

Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.

Reviews

[Isaiah (aka Isaiah Ward) Herrero · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great insight into the creation of Middle-Earth, if your curious about how Middle-Earth first was created I highly recommend reading this History of the Middle-Earth series.