John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (nearly always called "J.R.R. Tolkien" or simply "Tolkien") is generally acknowledged to be the father and grandmaster of the entire sub-genre called epic fantasy. But he never set out to be any kind of writer. Tolkien was a language professor at Oxford University in England, and he liked to develop artificial languages in his spare time. Eventually, he began developing peoples who would use those languages, and finally he built a world for those peoples to inhabit, which he called Middle-earth. He wrote a story for his children set in this fictional world, called THE HOBBIT; to his surprise, it was bought by a book publisher and became a bestseller. A few years later the publisher asked for a sequel; Tolkien obliged with his greatest work, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. This was both a sequel to THE HOBBIT and a bridge between that story and the greater, epic history he had devised for his world. The greater history itself was not published until after his death, and was called THE SILMARILLION.
Since JRR Tolkien died in 1974, the ever-present demand for more of his works has induced his son Christopher to bring out more books based on Tolkien's notes and uncompleted tales of Middle-earth. I haven't bought any of these, mainly because I feel that the original "Saga of Middle-earth" is complete in itself, and I'm simply not interested enough in the backstory to spend the large amounts of money required to get the more recent books. Others obviously feel differently -- after all, somebody is buying all those books.
What I do have includes the entire original Middle-earth series in paperback:
THE SILMARILLION comprises four works:
- The Ainulindale is Tolkien's Creation Myth, the formation of his world and the spirits which inhabit it. It describes how Iluvatar, the One, created the lesser spirits called the Ainur, and how the Ainur combined their powers and their voices in a Great Music befre Iluvatar's throne. It also describes how the Music was ruined by the Ainu called Melkor, who wove thoughts of his own into his song and so corrupted the whole.
- The Valaquenta is a Dramatis Personae of the greater and lesser Ainur that entered Middle-earth, which Tolkien calls the Valar and Maiar respectively.
- Quenta Silmarillion is the story of the First Age of Middle-earth: the origins of the races of Elves, Dwarves, and Men; the creation of the great jewels called the Silmarils; the rise to power of the Dark Lord Morgoth and his theft of the Silmarils; and the Wars of Beleriand fought between Morgoth's armies and those of the Free Peoples: the Elves, Dwarves, and Men. Here you can find many stories referred to in THE LORD OF THE RINGS: the tale of Beren One-hand and Luthien the Fair, the story of Gondolin, and many more.
- Finally, the Akallabeth is a history of the land of Numenor, the land that was created for Men after the First Age. Tolkien consciously based Numenor on Atlantis: a land of great wealth and nobility, that decayed from within, became a conqueror of other lands and peoples, fell under the dark influence of Sauron, and finally was destroyed after the Numenoreans attacked the Valar. Out of the ruin of Numenor came the Men of the West who founded the kingdoms of Arnor and Gondor in Middle-earth.
The Silmarillion is not something you read for fun -- at least, I've never met anyone who read it for fun. I think of it as "the Bible of Middle-earth" -- a great work of history and philosophy, meant as much more than just entertainment. It's also a profoundly depressing work in many ways, since its two primary stories are stories of failure and defeat by the Darkness that the Dark Lord Melkor brought into the world.
.THE HOBBIT is the story of Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit of the Shire, who joins a group of thirteen dwarves on their journey to the Lonely Mountain, once a rich dwarvish kingdom, now property of an evil, powerful dragon. Along the way he fights spiders, goblins, and other creatures, and finds a magic ring which is much more than it appears to be. He also discovers some unexpected things about himself. This is the original story that Tolkien wrote for his children, that eventually led to THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
THE LORD OF THE RINGS is Tolkien's masterwork. In paperback it's separated into three volumes:
- THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING tells of the reappearance of the Dark Lord Sauron the Great, onetime servant of Morgoth, now a Power in his own right. It also tells of Frodo Baggins, nephew and heir to Bilbo the Hobbit, who finds that the magic ring Bilbo left to him is in truth the One Ring of Power, a tool of tremendous power and pure evil, forged long ago by Sauron as part of his grand scheme to entrap the Free Peoples. The Ring also represents the only way to truly defeat Sauron: its power is such that destroying it will also destroy him. Frodo reluctantly volunteers to take the Ring to the place where it was forged, the volcano Orodruin in Sauron's land of Mordor, and there destroy it. For the first part of that journey he's accompanied by eight others: fellow hobbits Sam, Merry, and Pippin; two Men warriors, Aragorn and Boromir; Legolas the Elf; Gimli the Dwarf; and Gandalf the Wizard.
- THE TWO TOWERS continues the story from where FELLOWSHIP left off. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli travel into the land of Rohan, following a band of Orcs who captured the other two hobbits, Pippin and Merry, and killed Boromir. The Orcs were sent by the wizard Saruman, who once was a white wizard fighting the Dark Lord, but now seeks to be a Dark Power himself. The three travelers meet up again with Gandalf, and together they play a major role in rallying Rohan to defeat Saruman. Merry and Pippin also have a role to play in the war against Saruman: they rouse the Ents of Fangorn Forest, and the Ents march on Isengard and destroy it. Meanwhile, Frodo and his servant Sam gradually work their way southward toward Mordor. On their journey they meet Faramir of Gondor, Boromir's brother, and also the creature called Gollum, who once owned the Ring and is still enslaved by his desire for it.
- THE RETURN OF THE KING tells of the final war against Sauron and the end of Frodo's mission in Mordor. Aragorn and his allies defeat a mighty army that Sauron had sent to conquer Gondor, then stage an attack on Mordor which is intended only as a diversion, to give Frodo time to complete his mission. For his part, Sam rescues Frodo from the Enemy, then aids his master on the final journey to Mount Doom, where the Ring can be destroyed.
LOTR is one of very few works that I have more than one copy of. In this case, I have two. One is a set of paperbacks, which I keep for ordinary everyday reading. But because I enjoy Middle-earth so much, I also bought special collector's edition hardcovers of both THE HOBBIT and THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The Collector's Edition of THE HOBBIT is a large hardcover bound in green leather, with a slipcase of the same material, printed on long-lasting acid-free paper and including a number of illustrations by Tolkien himself. The Collector's Edition of THE LORD OF THE RINGS is a much thicker hardcover with a red-leather cover and slipcase, also printed on acid-free paper. Both are made to last. Both are also the definitive texts for the two works. While that may sound a bit pretentious, it's true -- extreme care was taken to remove all misprints and typographical errors, so that these editions are as close as possible to what Tolkien originally intended.
I went through a brief period of being intensely interested in everything Tolkien (fortunately, that was before the Unfinished Tales books started coming out), at which time I bought these books about Tolkien and Middle-earth:
ATLAS OF MIDDLE-EARTH
Fonstad, Karen Wynn
c.1991, Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: 0-395-53516-6
Karen Fonstad is a master cartographer and artist. A few years ago she turned her talents to producing atlases of well-known and well-described fictional lands from SF and fantasy. One of her works is this atlas to Middle-earth. She used all four of Tolkien's main middle-earth works as sources, and produced wonderful maps and sketches of most of the interesting places in Middle-earth, from the Shire to Khazad-dum to Mordor, and even across the Sea to Numenor.
COMPLETE GUIDE TO MIDDLE-EARTH, THE
Foster, Robert
c.1978, Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0-345-27975-1
A huge glossary to just about every significant person, place, and thing in the Middle-earth saga: people, places, events, battles, etc. It must have consumed a gigantic investment of time and energy. It's a very nice thing to have if you're trying to find specifics about something in Middle-earth.
Tolkien also wrote a few works of fantasy that weren't placed in Middle-earth. They were collected into two small books:
TOLKIEN READER, THE
c.1966, Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0-345-29881-0
A collection of poems, plus a couple of Tolkien's short stories. A nice light read. The poems come from the Red Book of Westmarch, which was also the (fictional) source for THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and they contain many Middle-earth references.
SMITH OF WOOTTON MAJOR/FARMER GILES OF HAM
c.1967, Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0-345-27865-8
Two very fun short stories set in medieval England at a time when magic worked and dragons and giants infested remote lands. "Farmer Giles of Ham" is about a reluctant farmer-turned-knight and the dragon he has to fight, although neither of them really wants to. "Smith of Wootton Major" is a "fairy-story," a story in the old fairy-tale tradition, about a boy who receives a faery-star and finds it opening all sorts of magical paths for him to walk.
Finally, I have Humphrey Carpenter's very good biography of Tolkien:
TOLKIEN: A BIOGRAPHY
Carpenter, Humphrey
c.1977, Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0-345-27256-0
