The Silmarillion

Experience Middle-earth like never before in this special edition of the forerunner to  The Lord of the Rings, illustrated throughout in color by J.R.R. Tolkien himself.  The Silmarillion  is a doorway to the history, mythology, key characters, and defining tales of the early ages of Middle-earth—an essential volume for any Tolkien reader eager for a deeper journey.

The Silmarilli were three perfect jewels, fashioned by F«anor, most gifted of the Elves, and within them was imprisoned the last Light of the Two Trees of Valinor. But the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, stole the jewels and set them within his iron crown, guarded in the impenetrable fortress of Angband in the north of Middle-earth.

The Silmarillion  is the history of the rebellion of F«anor and his kindred against the gods, their exile from Valinor and return to Middle-earth, and their war, hopeless despite all the heroism, against the great Enemy. 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 book also includes several shorter works: the  Ainulindal«, a myth of the Creation, and the  Valaquenta, in which the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The  Akallabªth  recounts the downfall of the great island kingdom of Nºmenor at the end of the Second Age, and  Of the Rings of Power  tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age, as narrated in  The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien could not publish  The Silmarillion  in his lifetime, as it grew with him, so he would leave it to his son, Christopher Tolkien, to edit the work from many manuscripts and bring his father’s great vision to publishable form, so completing the literary achievement of a lifetime. This special edition presents anew this seminal first step towards mapping out the posthumous publishing of Middle-earth, and the beginning of an illustrious forty years and more than twenty books celebrating his father’s legacy.

This definitive new edition includes, by way of an introduction, a letter written by Tolkien in 1951 which provides a brilliant exposition of the earlier Ages, and for the first time in its history is presented with Tolkien’s own paintings and drawings, which reveal the breathtaking grandeur and beauty of his vision of the First Age of Middle-earth.