The Silmarillion
by Christopher Tolkien (editor) & J R R Tolkien
This paperback edition of The Silmarillion, published in 2001, features JRR Tolkien’s drawing on the front cover and an extremely useful index of names at the back. You’ll find yourself consulting it frequently.
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Tolkien began writing The Silmarillion well before his other works but it was only published in 1977 after his death. Chronologically, it’s about the period before The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, but it’s better to read it afterwards. It’s filling in gaps in the ‘history’ (including the forging of the ring) but doesn’t have the narrative flow of the other books and is quite hard to read. Or to put it another way, The Simarillion is only a book to read if you’ve really caught the Tolkien bug and want to know everything about his world.
The Silmarils are jewels filled with light, and like the rings, they lead to trouble. At the centre of the story are elves, though other creatures do feature. You’ll find out the origin myth of dwarves and come across Sauron, originally the servant of Morgoth, who is the chief baddie of The Silmarillion. The Balrog, who later does battle with Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring, also features. Tolkien said it was all part of “one long saga of the Jewels and the Rings.” He also felt that two of the stories in particular—The Rings of Power and the Downfall of Númenor (listed as Akallabeth in the table of contents)—were “essential background” to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
“Tolkien didn’t set out to write novels, he set out to create a world. He wrote The Hobbit almost by accident–because he was telling the stories to his children, you see. After that his publishers wanted a follow up to The Hobbit, so he said “well, I’ve got this thing I’ve been working on”, which was the manuscript of The Silmarillion. They balked at that and asked if he had anything else with more Hobbits in it. So, he set himself to the task of writing a sequel which grew and grew and grew.”
Books Drawn From Myth and Fairy Tale, recommended by Alan Lee
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