Best Selling Books by Christopher Tolkien

"An essential historical reference for Middle-earth fans" (Entertainment Weekly), The Fall Of Gondolin is the final work of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth fiction, completing Christopher Tolkien's life-long achievement as the editor and curator of his father's manuscripts. In the Tale of The Fall of Gondolin are two of the greatest powers in the world. There is Morgoth of the uttermost evil, unseen in this story but ruling over a vast military power from his fortress of Angband. Deeply opposed to Morgoth is Ulmo, second in might only to Manwë, chief of the Valar. Central to this enmity of the gods is the city of Gondolin, beautiful but undiscoverable. It was built and peopled by Noldorin Elves who, when they dwelt in Valinor, the land of the gods, rebelled against their rule and fled to Middle-earth. Turgon King of Gondolin is hated and feared above all his enemies by Morgoth, who seeks in vain to discover the marvellously hidden city, while the gods in Valinor in heated debate largely refuse to intervene in support of Ulmo's desires and designs. Into this world comes Tuor, cousin of Túrin, the instrument of Ulmo's designs. Guided unseen by him Tuor sets out from the land of his birth on the fearful journey to Gondolin, and in one of the most arresting moments in the history of Middle-earth the sea-god himself appears to him, rising out of the ocean in the midst of a storm. In Gondolin he becomes great; he is wedded to Idril, Turgon's daughter, and their son is Eärendel, whose birth and profound importance in days to come is foreseen by Ulmo. At last comes the terrible ending. Morgoth learns through an act of supreme treachery all that he needs to mount a devastating attack on the city, with Balrogs and dragons and numberless Orcs. After a minutely observed account of the fall of Gondolin, the tale ends with the escape of Túrin and Idril, with the child Eärendel, looking back from a cleft in the mountains as they flee southward, at the blazing wreckage of their city. They were journeying into a new story, the Tale of Eärendel, which Tolkien never wrote, but which is sketched out in this book from other sources. Following his presentation of Beren and Lúthien Christopher Tolkien has used the same 'history in sequence' mode in the writing of this edition of The Fall of Gondolin. In the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, it was 'the first real story of this imaginary world' and, together with Beren and Lúthien and The Children of Húrin, he regarded it as one of the three 'Great Tales' of the Elder Days.

Before The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, the earliest myths and legends of Middle-earth and Valinor were laid down in The Book of Lost Tales, written by J.R.R. Tolkien between 1916 and 1920, and compiled by Christopher Tolkien for publication in 1983.

Painstakingly restored from J.R.R. Tolkien’s manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The tale of Beren and Lúthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year. Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril. In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, PEARL, AND SIR ORFEO THREE MEDIEVAL ENGLISH POEMS, WITH TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY BY J.R.R. TOLKIEN It’s Christmas at Camelot and King Arthur won’t begin to feast until he has witnessed a marvel of chivalry. A mysterious knight, green from head to toe, rides in and brings the court’s wait to an end with an implausible challenge to the Round Table: he will allow any of the knights to strike him once, with a battle-axe no less, on the condition that he is allowed to return the blow a year hence. Arthur’s brave favorite for the challenge is Sir Gawain… Accompanying Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in this book are Sir Orfeo, a medieval version of the story of Orpheus and Euridice, a love so strong that it overcame death, and Pearl, the moving tale of a man in a graveyard mourning his baby daughter, lost like a pearl that slipped through his fingers. Worn out by grief, he falls asleep and dreams of meeting her in a bejewelled fantasy world. Interpreted in a form designed to appeal to the general reader, J.R.R. Tolkien’s vivid translations of these classic poems represent the complete rhyme and alliterative schemes of the originals. This beautifully decorated text includes as a bonus the complete text of Tolkien’s acclaimed lecture on Sir Gawain.

In this book, Christopher Tolkien takes up his account of the later history of 'The Silmarillion', from the point where it was left off in Morgoth's Ring. The book completes the long history of 'The Book of Lost Tales'.

By analysing his father's stories Christopher Tolkien shows how unforeseen developments affect the plot in the different stages of the Ring saga. The book includes drawings, plans and maps, some of which are reproductions of J.R.R. Tolkien's originals.

'The Treason of Isengard' continues the account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings started in an earlier volume, 'The Return of the Shadow'.

In this sixth volume of The History of Middle-earth the story reaches The Lord of the Rings. In The Return of the Shadow (an abandoned title for the first volume) Christopher Tolkien describes, with full citation of the earliest notes, outline plans, and narrative drafts, the intricate evolution of The Fellowship of the Ring and the gradual emergence of the conceptions that transformed what J.R.R. Tolkien for long believed would be a far shorter book, 'a sequel to The Hobbit'. The enlargement of Bilbo's 'magic ring' into the supremely potent and dangerous Ruling Ring of the Dark Lord is traced and the precise moment is seen when, in an astonishing and unforeseen leap in the earliest narrative, a Black Rider first rode into the Shire, his significance still unknown. The character of the hobbit called Trotter (afterwards Strider or Aragorn) is developed while his indentity remains an absolute puzzle, and the suspicion only very slowly becomes certainty that he must after all be a Man. The hobbits, Frodo's companions, undergo intricate permutations of name and personality, and other major figures appear in strange modes: a sinister Treebeard, in league with the Enemy, a ferocious and malevolent Farmer Maggot. The story in this book ends at the point where J.R.R. Tolkien halted in the story for a long time, as the Company of the Ring, still lacking Legolas and Gimli, stood before the tomb of Balin in the Mines of Moria. The Return of the Shadow is illustrated with reproductions of the first maps and notable pages from the earliest manuscripts.

The End of the Third Age is comprised of the first section of the hardcover volume published as Sauron Defeated, the ninth volume of The History of Middle-earth. It completes Christopher Tolkien's account of the creation of The Lord of the Rings begun in the earlier volumes, The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, and The War of the Ring. The End of the Third Age begins with Sam's rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Kirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, this part ends with versions of the hitherto unpublished Epilogue, in which, years after the departure of Bilbo and Frodo from the Grey Havens, Sam attempts to answer his children's questions. The book is illustrated with changing conceptions of Kirith Ungol and Mount Doom, as well as previously unpublished drawings of Orthanc and Dunharrow.

Cuando J.R.R. Tolkien dejó de lado El Silmarillion en 1937, el desarrollo de la «mitología» de las últimas Edades apenas había comenzado. Fue en los Apéndices de El Señor de los Anillos donde surgió una estructura histórica comprensible y una cronología de la Segunda y Tercera Edad, abarcando todos los hilos que confluirían en La Guerra del Anillo. Es bien conocido el retraso en la publicación de El Retorno del Rey por la dificultad que encontró en redactar esos Apéndices. Pero en Los Pueblos de la Tierra Media Christopher Tolkien demuestra que existía una estructura original en escritos sueltos y en notas que difieren de la versión publicada. En estos textos tempranos se ve la evolución de la estructura cronológica de las últimas Edades, los calendarios, las genealogías de los hobbits y el lenguaje Oestron o Lengua Común.

In Morgoth's Ring, the tenth volume of The History of Middle-earth and the first of two companion volumes, Christopher Tolkien describes and documents the legends of the Elder Days, as they were evolved and transformed by his father in the years before he completed The Lord of the Rings. The text of the Annals of Aman, the "Blessed Land" in the far West, is given in full. And in writings never before published, we can see the nature of the problems that J.R.R. Tolkien explored in his later years as new and radical ideas, portending upheaval in the heart of the mythology. At this time Tokien sought to redefine the old legends, and wrote of the nature and destiny of Elves, the idea of Elvish rebirth, the origins of the Orcs, and the Fall of Men. His meditation of mortality and immortality as represented in the lives of Men and Elves led to another major writing at this time, the "Debate of Finrod and Andreth," which is reproduced here in full. "Above all," Christopher Tolkien writes in his foreward, "the power and significance of Melkor-Morgoth...was enlarged to become the ground and source of the corruption of Arda." This book indeed is all about Morgoth. Incomparably greater than the power of Sauron, concentrated in the One Ring, Morgoth's power (Tolkien wrote) was dispersed into the very matter of Arda: "The whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's Ring."