Tales told through the ages of quests and curses, enduring love and immeasurable tragedy “The power of Tolkien’s central characters—tragic, cursed Túrin; the lovers Beren and Lúthien—shines through.”—Library Journal Gathering together two of the most crucial stories in Tolkien’s world—those of Túrin, a hero living under a ruinous family curse, and Lúthien, an elven princess whose love for a mortal man is mirrored ages later in Arwen and Aragorn—The Lays of Beleriand sheds light on the creation of the mythology of Middle-earth. Journey through darkness with Túrin Turambar as he searches for his long-missing father in The Lay of the Children of Húrin, and join Beren and Lúthien on their quest to cut a Silmaril from Morgoth’s crown in The Lay of Leithian. Both narratives appear here in alliterative verse and are accompanied by Christopher Tolkien’s commentary on the evolution of the history of the Elder Days. Also included is critical analysis by C. S. Lewis of The Lay of Leithian.

Complete integrated indices of History of Middle-earth volumes. For the first time every index from each of the twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth has been published together in a single volume - to create a supreme index charting the writing of Tolkien's masterpieces The Lord of The Rings and The Silmarillion.

Many years ago, J.R.R. Tolkien composed his own version of the great legend of Northern antiquity, recounted here in The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún. In the Lay of the Völsungs is told the ancestry of the great hero Sigurd, the slayer of Fáfnir, most celebrated of dragons; of his awakening of the Valkyrie Brynhild, who slept surrounded by a wall of fire, and of their betrothal; and of his coming to the court of the great princes who were named the Niflungs (or Nibelungs), with whom he entered into blood-brotherhood. In scenes of dramatic intensity, of confusion of identity, thwarted passion, jealousy, and bitter strife, the tragedy of Sigurd and Brynhild, of Gunnar the Niflung and Gudrún his sister, mounts to its end in the murder of Sigurd, the suicide of Brynhild, and the despair of Gudrún. The Lay of Gudrún recounts her fate after the death of Sigurd, her marriage against her will to the mighty Atli, ruler of the Huns (the Attila of history), his murder of her brothers, and her hideous revenge.

In his acclaimed collection Tales Before Tolkien, Douglas A. Anderson illuminated the sources, inspirations, and influences that fired J.R.R. Tolkien’s genius. Now Anderson turns his attention to Tolkien’s colleague and friend C. S. Lewis, whose influence on modern fantasy, through his beloved Narnia books, is second only to Tolkien’s own. In many ways, Lewis’s influence has been even wider than Tolkien’s. For in addition to the Narnia series, Lewis wrote groundbreaking works of science fiction, urban fantasy, and religious allegory, and he came to be regarded as among the most important Christian writers of the twentieth century. It will come as no surprise, then, that such a wide-ranging talent drew inspiration from a variety of sources. Here are twenty of the tributaries that fed Lewis’s unique talent, among them: “The Wood That Time Forgot: The Enchanted Wood,” taken from a never-before-published fantasy by Lewis’s biographer and friend, Roger Lancelyn Green, that directly inspired The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; E. Nesbit’s charming “The Aunt and Amabel,” in which a young girl enters another world by means of a wardrobe; “The Snow Queen,” by Hans Christian Andersen, featuring the abduction of a young boy by a woman as cruel as she is beautiful; and many more, including works by Charles Dickens, Kenneth Grahame, G. K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald, of whom Lewis would write, “I have never concealed the fact that I regarded him as my master.” Full of fascinating insights into Lewis’s life and fiction, Tales Before Narnia is the kind of book that will be treasured by children and adults alike and passed down lovingly from generation to generation. INCLUDING SEVENTEEN MORE WORKS BY THE PROGENITORS OF MODERN FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION: “Tegnér’s Drapa” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow “The Magic Mirror” by George MacDonald “Undine” by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué “Letters from Hell: Letter III” by Valdemar Thisted “Fastosus and Avaro” by John Macgowan “The Tapestried Chamber; or, The Lady in the Sacque” by Sir Walter Scott “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton” by Charles Dickens “The Child and the Giant” by Owen Barfield “A King’s Lesson” by William Morris “The Waif Woman: A Cue—From a Saga” by Robert Louis Stevenson “First Whisper of The Wind in the Willows” by Kenneth Grahame “The Wish House” by Rudyard Kipling “Et in Sempiternum Pereant” by Charles Williams “The Dragon’s Visit” by J.R.R. Tolkien “The Coloured Lands” by G. K. Chesterton “The Man Who Lived Backwards” by Charles F. Hall “The Dream Dust Factory” by William Lindsay Gresham

This is the first of two volumes which documents later writing of 'The Silmarillion', Tolkien's epic tale of war. Christopher Tolkien documents the history of 'The Silmarillion', from the time when his father turned again to 'the Matter of the Elder Days'.

In the field of romantic literature this fertile writer has also gained distinction. All his novels contain a large mystical element. Their plots are decidedly peculiar, and many of the characters are quite out of the ordinary run. "Onesimus Templeton," which has had a very large sale, first appeared in 1890. It purports to be an authentic record of unusual psychic experiences, clothed in the garb of fiction because the author was not at liberty to disclose the identity of the actual personages who figure in the tale. This book abounds in humor and has a strong vein of sarcasm. It also discusses the great theological and metaphysical problems of our day. --Mind, Volume 10 [1902]

At the end of the 1937 J.R.R. Tolkien reluctantly set aside his now greatly elaborated work on the myths and heroic legends of Valinor and Middle-earth and began The Lord of the Rings. This fifth volume of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien, completes the presentation of the whole compass of his writing on those themes up to that time. Later forms of the Annuals of Valinor and the Annals of Berleriand had been composed, The Silmarillion was nearing completion in a greatly amplified version, and a new map had been made; the myth of the Music of the Ainur had become a separate work; and the legend of the Downfall of Numenor had already entered in a primitive form, introducing the cardinal ideas of the World Made Round and the Straight Path into the vanished West. Closely associated with this was the abandoned time-travel story, The Lost Road, which was to link the world of Numenor and Middle-earth with the legends of many other times and peoples. A long essay, The Lhammas, had been written on the ever more complex relations of the languages and dialects of Middle-earth; and an etymological dictionary had been undertaken, in which a great number of words and names in the Elvish languages were registered and their formation explained - thus providing by far the most extensive account of their vocabularies that has appeared.

This is the third volume in 'The History of Middle-Earth' series that contains the early myths and legends which led to the writing of Tolkien's epic tale of war, 'The Silmarillion'.

This collection is taken from The hobbit and The adventures of Tom Bombadil.