The History of Middle-earth

Book series on Tolkien's writings

This article is about the book series. For the fictional history of the continent, see History of Arda.

The History of Middle-earth

The front cover of Volume 9

Editor| Christopher Tolkien
Author| J. R. R. Tolkien
Language| English
Genre| High fantasy
Publisher| George Allen & Unwin (UK)
Houghton Mifflin (US)

Publication date

| 1983 to 1996
Publication place| United Kingdom
Media type| Print (hardback and paperback)
Pages| 12 volumes
Preceded by| Unfinished Tales
Followed by| The Children of Húrin

The History of Middle-earth is a 12-volume series of books published between 1983 and 1996 by George Allen & Unwin in the UK and by Houghton Mifflin in the US. They collect and analyse much of J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, compiled and edited by his son Christopher Tolkien. The series shows the development over time of Tolkien's conception of Middle-earth as a fictional place with its own peoples, languages, and history, from his earliest notions of "a mythology for England" through to the development of the stories that make up The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. It is not a "history of Middle-earth" in the sense of being a chronicle of events in Middle-earth written from an in-universe perspective; it is instead an out-of-universe history of Tolkien's creative process. In 2000, the twelve volumes were republished in three limited edition omnibus volumes.[1]

Scholars including Gergely Nagy and Vincent Ferré have commented that Tolkien had always wanted to create a mythology, but believed that such a thing should have passed through many hands and be framed by annotations and edits of different kinds. When Christopher Tolkien, a philologist like his father, edited the History, he created an editorial frame, inadvertently reinforcing the mythopoeic effect that his father wanted.

## Context

[edit]

J. R. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) was a professor of English language at the University of Leeds, and then at the University of Oxford. He specialised in philology, especially Old English works such as Beowulf. He is best known for his novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but he spent much of his time working on his legendarium.[2][3] This was not published in his lifetime; he left a large mass of unsorted manuscripts for his literary executor, his son Christopher Tolkien, to work on. Christopher, a philologist like his father, became lecturer in English language at New College, Oxford in 1963. After his father's death, he constructed a short summary of the legendarium stories, published in 1977 as The Silmarillion; he followed this in 1978 with Unfinished Tales, a selection from the later legendarium.[2]

## Structure and contents

[edit]

Further information: J. R. R. Tolkien bibliography

The History of Middle-earth documents J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, an extensive set of drafts on many aspects of Middle-earth, which Tolkien wrote in stages throughout his life. The History, edited by his son Christopher, was published in 12 volumes by George Allen & Unwin in the UK and by Houghton Mifflin in the US between 1983 and 1996 as follows:[4]

The History of Middle-earth[4] Volumes, grouped  | Written  | Contents  | Tolkien's life[3]

|
|
|

1\. The Book of Lost Tales, Part I (1983)

2\. The Book of Lost Tales, Part II (1984)

| 1914–1920  | 1: Cottage of Lost Play, Music of the Ainur, Tale of the Sun and Moon, Hiding of Valinor.
2: Tale of Tinuviel, Turambar, Fall of Gondolin, Tale of Eärendel  | First World War;
Oxford English Dictionary;
University of Leeds
3\. The Lays of Beleriand (1985)

4\. The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)

| 1920–1935  | Early history of legendarium, in multiple versions.[5] Lay of the Children of Húrin, Lay of Leithian, earliest Silmarillion, Quenta Noldorinwa, Ambarkanta, earliest Annals  | University of Oxford

5\. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)

| 1936–1937  | Fall of Númenor, The Lost Road, Ainulindalë, Quenta Silmarillion, Later Annals  | The Hobbit written and published
The History of The Lord of the Rings[6]

6\. [1] The Return of the Shadow (1988)
7\. [2] The Treason of Isengard (1989)
8\. [3] The War of the Ring (1990)
9\. [4] Sauron Defeated (1992)

| 1938–1948  | The Lord of the Rings; in 9. also Númenor story as The Notion Club Papers.  | Second World War;
constructing The Lord of the Rings
The Later Silmarillion

10\. [1] Morgoth's Ring (1993)
11\. [2] The War of the Jewels (1994)

| 1948–1959  | Ainulindalë, later Quenta Silmarillion, Athrabeth, Annals of Beleriand, Annals of Aman | The Lord of the Rings published
12\. The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)  | 1960–1973  | Prologue and Appendices to The Lord of the Rings; Unfinished Tales; other late writings  | retirement

A combined index was published six years after the series was completed as The History of Middle-earth: Index (2002).[7]

A shorter version of volume 9, omitting material not related to The Lord of the Rings, was published as The End of the Third Age;[8] this is however usually sold as a boxed set along with volumes 6, 7 and 8 as The History of the Lord of the Rings.[6]

Christopher Tolkien made the decision not to include any material related to The Hobbit in The History of Middle-earth. His reasons for this were that it had not been intended to form part of the mythology, was a children's story, and had originally not been set in Middle-earth; it was revised during the writing of The Lord of the Rings. The History of The Hobbit was published separately, in two volumes, in 2007 and was edited by John D. Rateliff.[9]

## Reception

[edit]

Charles Noad, reviewing The War of the Jewels in Mallorn, comments that the 12-volume History had done something that a putative single-volume edition of The Silmarillion (such as Tolkien had hoped to publish) with embedded commentary could not have achieved: it had changed people's perspective on Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, from being centred on The Lord of the Rings to what it had always been in Tolkien's mind: Silmarillion-centred.[10]

Reviewing The Peoples of Middle-earth, Noad adds that "The whole series of The History of Middle-earth is a tremendous achievement and makes a worthy and enduring testament to one man's creative endeavours and to another's explicatory devotion. It reveals far more about Tolkien's invented world than any of his readers in pre-Silmarillion days could ever have imagined or hoped for." He concludes that thorough study of the twelve volumes would be essential for understanding "Tolkien's imaginative art".[11]

Liz Milner, for A Green Man Review, writes that the series provides "an unprecedented opportunity to examine a great writer's creative development over a period of 60 years".[12] She adds that Christopher Tolkien's editing demonstrated "the endurance and cleaning power of Hercules", given that his father's papers were all in disorder.[12]

Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull, in VII, describe Tolkien's mythology as documented in the History as "a work of extraordinary power and scope". They note that only with the History's publication can that at last be judged; and that the legendarium as left to his son Christopher was "an immense and extremely complex set of writings". They note, too, that readers were hoping for "another Lord of the Rings". Christopher created The Silmarillion as a "coherent and internally self-consistent narrative" by fitting together and modifying his father's drafts, which had been written in different styles, degrees of detail, and degrees of completeness. But this gave little idea of the diversity or process of continual change embodied in the legendarium. Accordingly, Christopher set to work on the History to try to tackle the "infinite variety" of his father's writings, from prose to alliterative verse, from cosmology and annals to time-travel stories. Hammond and Scull note that some readers felt that the History "should never have been published, that it is a disservice to Tolkien to display his missteps and false starts". They note, too, that other fans have objected to it "on false grounds of 'canonicity'", arguing that Tolkien had not "approve[d] these texts for publication", nor fixed the details for use in games and the like. Hammond and Scull answer that the History was meant to present "not a fixed design, but a living creation, and the process by which Tolkien gave it life." In their view, it offers "a unique opportunity to view the creative spark, a fascinating insight into the work of one of the most imaginative and influential writers of the twentieth century". They predict that it would start "a new era" in Tolkien studies.[13]

## Analysis

[edit]

### A life's work

[edit]

Further information: Tolkien's legendarium

Sample from "The Music of the Ainur" in Book of Lost Tales 1 (History volume 1, 1983)  Christopher Tolkien's commentary  | J. R. R. Tolkien's text

|

In another notebook identical to that in which The Cottage of Lost Play was written out by my mother, there is a text in ink in my father's hand ... entitled: Link between Cottage of Lost Play and (Tale 2) Music of Ainur. This follows on directly from Vairë's last words to Eriol, and in turn links on directly to The Music of the Ainur ... The Link exists in only one version, for the text in ink was written over a draft in pencil that was wholly erased.  |     'But', said Eriol, 'still are there many things that remain dark to me. Indeed I would fain know who be these Valar; are they the Gods?'
'So be they', said Lindo, 'though concerning them Men tell many strange and garbled tales that are far from the truth...'; but Vairë said: 'Nay then, Lindo, be not drawn into more tale-telling tonight, for the hour of rest is at hand, and for all his eagerness our guest is way-worn. Send now for the candles of sleep, ...

In 1967, Tolkien named his son Christopher as his literary executor, and more specifically as his co-author of The Silmarillion. After his father's death in 1973, Christopher took a large quantity of legendarium manuscripts to his Oxfordshire home, where he converted a barn into a workspace. He and the young Guy Gavriel Kay started work on the documents, discovering by 1975 how complex the task was likely to be. In September 1975 he resigned from his position at New College, Oxford, to work exclusively on editing his father's writings. He moved to the south of France and continued this task for 45 years.[2][14] In all, he edited and published 24 volumes of his father's writings, including the 12 of the History.[15] In those volumes, Verlyn Flieger writes,

> Christopher arranged and edited in chronological sequence all the stories of his father's mythology. Now published as the twelve-volume series, The History of Middle-earth, this work presents Tolkien's mythology in its entirety, tracing the path of a remarkable vision, a musical score, if you will, from its earliest conception to its author's last meditations on his creation.[16]

### Challenges

[edit]

Christopher Tolkien's task was complicated by numerous features of the manuscripts. The drafts were handwritten, often hastily, making them hard to decipher. Many were in pencil; earlier pencilled versions were often erased and overwritten. Drafts were frequently annotated or extended on the same sheets of paper, making the exact sequence hard to reconstruct. The papers were in disorder; relative dates had to be worked out from evidence in the texts, or occasionally from his father's use or reuse of a stock of paper that derived from a certain place or time, giving an earliest bound to the dating of those manuscripts.[17][18]

### Editorial framing

[edit]

Further information: Editorial framing of The Lord of the Rings

The scholar Gergely Nagy observes that Tolkien "thought of his works as texts within the fictional world" (his emphasis), and that the overlapping of different and sometimes contradictory accounts was central to his desired effect. Further, Tolkien was a philologist; Nagy comments that Tolkien may have been intentionally imitating the philological style of authors such as Elias Lönnrot, compiler of the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, whom Tolkien saw as an exemplar of a professional and creative philology. This was, Nagy believes, what Tolkien thought essential if he was to present a mythology for England, since such a thing had to have been written by many hands. Further, writes Nagy, by publishing his father's writings, Christopher Tolkien, also a philologist, "inserted himself in the functional place of Bilbo" as editor and collator, in his view "reinforcing the mythopoeic effect" that his father had wanted to achieve, making the published book do what Bilbo's book was meant to do, and so unintentionally realising his father's intention. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings had become, in reality and no longer only in fiction, a complex work by different hands edited, annotated, and commented upon over a long period.[19]

Elizabeth Whittingham writes that Tolkien valued the impression of depth that the mention of much older events had created in The Lord of the Rings, and that he realised he could not do the same for the Silmarillion stories as they were in that older time. Instead, a man from a later age, such as Eriol of The Book of Lost Tales, could visit Middle-earth and listen to the tales of the Elves, providing a frame story. He records the stories, she writes, and "Eriol's perspective becomes the reader's, ... separat[ing] readers from these tales of past loss and faded glory."[20]

Flieger comments that Christopher's remark in the introduction to The Book of Lost Tales 1, that he had made an error in not providing any sort of frame story for his 1977 The Silmarillion, is at least partly correct. In her view, the one-volume Silmarillion "gives a misleading impression of coherence and finality, as if it were a definitive, canonical text", while in fact the legendarium from which it is adapted "is a jumble of overlapping and often competing stories, annals, and lexicons."[21] All the same, she writes, that book was essential, as without it the History would never have been published, and the twelve-volume work "provides exactly the framework its editor [Christopher] felt was lacking in the earlier and in some ways premature book."[21]

Vincent Ferré writes that Christopher Tolkien's editing of the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth, using his skill as a philologist, created an editorial frame for his father's legendarium, and for the books derived from it. Ferré comments that this presented his father's writings as historical, a real set of legends from the past, in just the same way that his editing of The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays presented his father's essays as scholarly work.[22]

* Editorial framing of The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays by Christopher Tolkien presents it as a set of scholarly texts.[22]

* Christopher Tolkien's editorial framing of the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth presents his father's legendarium, and the books derived from it, as a set of historic texts, analogous to the presentation of genuine scholarly works like The Monsters and The Critics; and it creates a narrative voice throughout the series, a figure of Christopher Tolkien himself.[22]

Outside Christopher Tolkien's editorial frame, other authors have contributed more humorous framing elements. Tolkien's friend and fellow-Inkling, C. S. Lewis, greatly enjoyed The Lay of Leithian, going so far as to invent scholars Peabody and Pumpernickel who comment on what Lewis pretends is an ancient text.[23] Mark Shea wrote a mock work of philological scholarship, set in the distant future, and looking back at the works attributed to Tolkien and to Peter Jackson. Shea states that "Experts in source-criticism now know that The Lord of the Rings is a redaction of sources ranging from The Red Book of Westmarch (W) to Elvish Chronicles (E) to Gondorian records (G) to orally transmitted tales of the Rohirrim (R)," each with "their own agendas", like "the 'Tolkien' (T) and 'Peter Jackson' (PJ) redactors". He notes confidently that "we may be quite certain that 'Tolkien' (if he ever existed) did not write this work in the conventional sense, but that it was assembled over a long period of time..."[24]

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The History of Middle-earth". An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography. TolkienBooks.net. 2014. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
2. ^ a b c Honegger, Thomas. "Tolkien, Christopher Reuel". J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia. Routledge. Archived from the original on 7 April 2014. Retrieved 16 April 2016.
3. ^ a b Carpenter 1977.
4. ^ a b Whittingham 2008, pp. 9–11.
5. ^ Flieger 2005, p. 50.
6. ^ a b Tolkien, Christopher (1998). The History of the Lord of the Rings. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-261-10370-2.
7. ^ Tolkien, Christopher (2002). The History of Middle-Earth Index. London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-713743-5.
8. ^ Tolkien, John Ronald Reuel; Tolkien, Christopher (2000). The End of the Third Age. Boston: Mariner Books. ISBN 978-0-618-08356-5. OCLC 44924324.
9. ^ Olsen, Corey. "The History of Middle-earth". The Tolkien Professor. Retrieved 27 June 2024.
10. ^ Noad, Charles (1994). "[Untitled Review of The War of the Jewels]". Mallorn (31): 50–54\. JSTOR 45320384.
11. ^ Noad, Charles E. (1996). "[Untitled Review]". Mallorn (34): 33–41\. JSTOR 45321696.
12. ^ a b Milner, Liz. "J.R.R. Tolkien's The History of Middle-Earth". A Green Man Review. Retrieved 4 June 2024.
13. ^ Hammond, Wayne G.; Scull, Christina (1995). "The History of Middle-Earth: Review Article". VII: Journal of the Marion E. Wade Center. 12: 105–110\. JSTOR 45296314.
14. ^ McIlwaine, Catherine. "Introduction" in Ovenden & McIlwaine 2022, pp. 7–10, 14–22
15. ^ Ovenden & McIlwaine 2022, pp. 26–27 "Timeline"
16. ^ Flieger 2005, p. xiv.
17. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1984). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Book of Lost Tales. Vol. 1\. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-35439-0. pp. 9–10.
18. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1988). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Return of the Shadow. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-49863-7. pp. 3–5.
19. ^ Nagy, Gergely (2020) [2014]. "The Silmarillion: Tolkien's Theory of Myth, Text, and Culture". In Lee, Stuart D. (ed.). A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 107–118\. ISBN 978-1-119-65602-9.
20. ^ Whittingham 2008, "Tolkien's Mythology of Creation".
21. ^ a b Flieger 2005, p. 63.
22. ^ a b c Ferré 2022, pp. 53–69.
23. ^ Rowntree, Suzannah (19 April 2012). "[Review:] The Lays of Beleriand by JRR Tolkien". Archived from the original on 5 May 2013. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
24. ^ Shea, Mark (2004). "The Lord of the Rings: A Source-Critical Analysis". In Croft, Janet Brennan (ed.). Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Mythopoeic Press. pp. 309–311\. ISBN 978-1-887726-09-2.

## Sources

[edit]

* Bratman, David (2000). "The Literary Value of 'The History of Middle-earth'". Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy (86): 69–94.
* Carpenter, Humphrey (1977). J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 978-0-04-928037-3.
* Ferré, Vincent (2022). "The Son Behind the Father: Christopher Tolkien as a Writer". In Ovenden, Richard; McIlwaine, Catherine (eds.). The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien. Bodleian Library Publishing. pp. 53–69\. ISBN 978-1-8512-4565-9.
* Flieger, Verlyn (2005). Interrupted Music: The Making Of Tolkien's Mythology. Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-824-0.
* Ovenden, Richard; McIlwaine, Catherine, eds. (2022). The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien. Bodleian Library Publishing. ISBN 978-1-8512-4565-9.
* Whittingham, Elizabeth A. (2008). The Evolution of Tolkien's Mythology: A Study of the History of Middle-earth. McFarland & Company. ISBN 978-1-4766-1174-7.

## External links

[edit]

* A detailed list of content in History of Middle-earth volumes and Unfinished Tales

* v
* t
* e

J. R. R. Tolkien

* Bibliography
* Letters

Poetry
and songs|

* Songs for the Philologists (1936)
* "Bagme Bloma"
* The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (1953)
* "A Walking Song" (1954)
* The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)
* "Errantry"
* "Fastitocalon"
* "The Sea-Bell"
* "The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late"
* The Road Goes Ever On (1967)
* Bilbo's Last Song (1974)
* The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (2009)
* The Fall of Arthur (2013)
* The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024)
* List of Tolkien's alliterative verse

Fiction|

* The Hobbit (1937)
* "Leaf by Niggle" (1947)
* The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945)
* Farmer Giles of Ham (1949)
* The Lord of the Rings:
* The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
* The Two Towers (1954)
* The Return of the King (1955)
* Tree and Leaf (1964)
* The Tolkien Reader (1966)
* Smith of Wootton Major (1967)

Posthumous
fiction|

* The Father Christmas Letters (1976)
* The Silmarillion (1977)
* Unfinished Tales (1980)
* Mr. Bliss (1982)
* The History of Middle-earth (1983–1996)
* The Book of Lost Tales
* The Lays of Beleriand
* The Shaping of Middle-earth
* The Lost Road and Other Writings
* The History of The Lord of the Rings
* Morgoth's Ring
* The War of the Jewels
* The Peoples of Middle-earth
* Roverandom (1998)
* The Children of Húrin (2007)
* The History of The Hobbit (2007)
* The Story of Kullervo (2015)
* Beren and Lúthien (2017)
* The Fall of Gondolin (2018)
* The Nature of Middle-earth (2021)
* The Fall of Númenor (2022)

Academic
works|

* Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Middle English text, 1925)
* "The Devil's Coach Horses" (1925)
* "Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad" (1929)
* "Sigelwara Land" (1932–34)
* "Chaucer as a Philologist: The Reeve's Tale" (1934)
* "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936)
* "On Fairy-Stories" (1939)
* Eucatastrophe
* "On Translating Beowulf" (1940)
* Sir Orfeo (1944)
* Ancrene Wisse (1962)
* "English and Welsh" (1963)
* Jerusalem Bible (as translator and lexicographer, 1966)

Posthumous
academic|

* Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (translations, 1975)
* Exodus (1981)
* Finn and Hengest (1982)
* The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays (1983)
* Beowulf and the Critics (2002)
* Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary with "Sellic Spell" (2014)
* A Secret Vice (2016)

Scholars
(works)|

| Biographers|

* Humphrey Carpenter
* J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977, authorized biography)
* John Garth
* Tolkien and the Great War
* The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien
* Catherine McIlwaine
* Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth
* Charles Moseley

|

Christian|

* Stratford Caldecott
* Matthew T. Dickerson
* Colin Duriez
* Peter Kreeft
* Holly Ordway
* Joseph Pearce
* Fleming Rutledge
* Ralph C. Wood

Literary
critics|

* Douglas A. Anderson
* Nicholas Birns
* Bradley J. Birzer
* Janice Bogstad & Philip Kaveny
* Picturing Tolkien
* David Bratman
* Janet Brennan Croft
* Tolkien on Film
* Patrick Curry
* Bradford Lee Eden
* Dimitra Fimi
* Tolkien, Race and Cultural History
* Jason Fisher
* Verlyn Flieger
* Interrupted Music
* A Question of Time
* Splintered Light
* Michael Foster
* Nick Groom
* Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull
* J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography
* The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion
* J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator
* The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
* Randel Helms
* Thomas Honegger
* Charles A. Huttar
* Paul H. Kocher
* Master of Middle-Earth
* Stuart D. Lee
* The Keys of Middle-earth
* Jared Lobdell
* A Tolkien Compass
* John D. Rateliff
* Robin Anne Reid
* Brian Rosebury
* Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon
* Amy H. Sturgis
* Anna Vaninskaya
* Richard C. West
* Elizabeth Whittingham
* Rose Zimbardo
* Understanding The Lord of the Rings

Linguists|

* Anthony Appleyard
* Helge Fauskanger
* Carl F. Hostetter
* Tom Loback
* David Salo
* Arden R. Smith
* Allan Turner

Medievalists,
Classicists|

* Marjorie Burns
* Perilous Realms
* Jane Chance
* Tolkien and the Invention of Myth
* Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England'
* Michael D. C. Drout
* J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia
* Jonathan Evans
* Vincent Ferré
* Gergely Nagy
* Tom Shippey
* J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
* The Road to Middle-Earth
* Elizabeth Solopova
* Sandra Ballif Straubhaar
* Hamish Williams
* Tolkien and the Classical World

Popular|

* Lin Carter
* Robert Foster
* Glen GoodKnight
* Michael Martinez
* Charles Noad
* J. E. A. Tyler

Related|

* Family
* Francis Xavier Morgan
* Influences
* Artwork
* Languages constructed by Tolkien
* Impact of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings
* Inklings
* Milton Waldman
* Mythopoeic Society
* Elvish Linguistic Fellowship
* Tolkien's impact on fantasy
* Tolkien and the modernists
* Tolkien Estate
* Tolkien fandom
* Tolkien fan fiction
* Tolkien Gateway
* The Tolkien Society
* Awards
* Memorials
* Reception
* Tolkien research
* Mythlore
* Tolkien Studies
* Works inspired by Tolkien
* Tolkien (biographical film)
* Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (album)
* Language and Human Nature
* The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

* v
* t
* e

Middle-earth

* J. R. R. Tolkien
* Bibliography
* Canon
* Legendarium
* Outline

Works|

| In Tolkien's
lifetime|

* The Hobbit (1937)
* The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)
* The Fellowship of the Ring
* "The Shadow of the Past"
* "The Council of Elrond"
* The Two Towers
* The Return of the King
* "The Scouring of the Shire"
* "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen"
* The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)

|

Posthumous|

* The Silmarillion (1977)
* "Ainulindalë"
* Unfinished Tales (1980)
* The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (1981)
* Bilbo's Last Song (1990)
* The three "Great Tales"
* The Children of Húrin (2007)
* Beren and Lúthien (2017)
* The Fall of Gondolin (2018)
* The Fall of Númenor (2022)

History of
composition|

| History of
Middle-earth|

* [1–2] The Book of Lost Tales (1983–84)
* Ælfwine
* [3] The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
* [4] The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)
* [5] The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
* The Etymologies
* Lhammas
* [6–9] The History of The Lord of the Rings (1988–92)
* The Notion Club Papers
* [10] Morgoth's Ring (1993)
* [11] The War of the Jewels (1994)
* [12] The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)

|

Others|

* John D. Rateliff
* The History of The Hobbit (2007)
* Carl F. Hostetter
* The Nature of Middle-earth (2021)

Fictional
universe|

| Peoples,
monsters|

* Ainur
* Maiar
* Balrogs
* Wizards
* Valar
* Dragons
* Ancalagon
* Smaug
* Dwarves
* Eagles
* Elves
* Half-elven
* Noldor
* Sundering
* Ents
* Hobbits
* Men
* Beornings
* Drúedain
* Dúnedain
* Orcs
* Trolls

|

Characters|

* First and Second Ages
* Celebrimbor
* Eärendil and Elwing
* Elendil
* Fëanor
* Fingolfin
* Finwë and Míriel
* Gil-galad
* Húrin
* Isildur
* Lúthien and Beren
* Melian
* Morgoth
* Thingol
* Tuor and Idril
* Túrin Turambar
* Ungoliant
* Third Age
* Elrond
* Galadriel
* Gandalf
* Glorfindel
* Goldberry
* Gollum
* Saruman
* Sauron
* Tom Bombadil

Places|

* First and Second Ages
* Beleriand
* Númenor
* Valinor
* Third Age
* Bree
* Esgaroth
* Gondor
* Harad
* Isengard
* Lonely Mountain
* Lothlórien
* Mirkwood
* Mordor
* Moria
* Rivendell
* Rohan
* The Shire
* Bag End

Objects|

* Mithril
* Palantír
* Red Book of Westmarch
* Rings of Power
* One Ring
* Silmarils
* Two Trees of Valinor
* List of weapons and armour

Analysis|

| Elements|

* Artwork
* Family trees
* Heraldry
* Languages
* Adûnaic
* Black Speech
* Elvish
* Quenya
* Sindarin
* Khuzdul
* Valarin
* Westron
* Maps
* Tolkien's poetry
* Scripts
* Cirth
* Sarati
* Tengwar

|

Themes|

* Anachronism
* Ancestry as guide to character
* Architecture
* Christianity
* Cosmology
* Round World dilemma
* Death and immortality
* Decline and fall
* Dreams and visions
* Economy
* England
* Environmentalism
* Evil
* First World War
* Forests
* Frame stories
* Hell
* Heroism
* Light
* Luck and fate
* Magic
* Mental illness
* Modernism
* Moral dilemma
* Music
* Naming of weapons
* Northern courage
* Old Straight Road
* Paganism
* Plants
* Psychological journeys
* Quests
* Sound and language
* Time
* Trees

Literary|

* Tolkien's impact on fantasy
* Influences
* Beowulf
* Celtic
* Classical world
* Finnish language and literature
* Medieval
* Modern
* William Morris
* Norse
* Philology
* Shakespeare
* Prose style
* Ambiguity
* A mythology for England

Geographic|

* The Atlas of Middle-earth
* Journeys of Frodo
* A Map of Middle-earth

Adaptations,
legacy|

| Artists|

* Pauline Baynes
* Cor Blok
* Anke Eißmann
* Brothers Hildebrandt
* Jenny Dolfen
* Mary Fairburn
* Donato Giancola
* John Howe
* Tove Jansson
* Alexander Korotich
* Alan Lee
* Tom Loback
* Margrethe II of Denmark
* Ted Nasmith

|

Composers|

* Bo Hansson
* Johan de Meij
* Symphony No. 1 The Lord of the Rings
* Howard Shore
* Music of The Lord of the Rings film series
* Music of The Hobbit film series
* Music of The Rings of Power TV series
* Blind Guardian
* Nightfall in Middle-Earth

Settings|

* Donald Swann
* The Road Goes Ever On
* Poems and Songs of Middle Earth
* The Tolkien Ensemble
* An Evening in Rivendell
* A Night in Rivendell
* At Dawn in Rivendell
* Leaving Rivendell

Other media|

* Impact
* Middle-earth Enterprises
* Works inspired by Tolkien
* Fan fiction
* Film
* Calendars
* Video games
* Things named after Tolkien and his works

Literary
criticism|

* The Complete Guide to Middle-earth
* A Companion to J. R. R. Tolkien
* Interrupted Music
* Master of Middle-Earth
* Picturing Tolkien
* A Question of Time
* J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century
* The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
* J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia
* The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion
* Perilous Realms
* The Road to Middle-Earth
* Splintered Light
* Tolkien and the Invention of Myth
* Tolkien's Art: 'A Mythology for England'
* Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings
* A Tolkien Compass
* Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth
* Tolkien, Race and Cultural History
* Tolkien's Legendarium
* Tolkien and the Great War
* The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien
* The Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary

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