Frodo and his companions have been beset by danger during the quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord, Gandalf has been lost in the Mines of Moria, and now they journey down the great River Anduin toward the Cracks of Doom.

"Tolkien considered THE SILMARILLION his most important work, and, though it was published last and posthumously, this great collection of tales and legends clearly sets the stage for all his other writing. The story of the creation of the world and of the the First Age, this 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 three Silmarils...

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, the Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell by chance into the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. From Sauron's fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor, his power spread far and wide....

As the Shadow of Mordor grows, the companions find their way through danger and mystery as they defeat the Dark Lord and celebrate Aragorn's ascent to become King of the West. Includes appendices containing genealogical and historical information that form the background of the story.

Includes Beren and Luthien, Turin and the Dragon, and full narratives of the Necklace of the Dwarves and the Fall of Gondolin. Also includes commentary and poems associated with each tale.

The epic conclusion to the adventures of Bilbo Baggins. The dragon Smaug rains his fiery wrath down upon the defenseless men, women, and children of Lake-town. Obsessed above all else with his reclaimed treasure, Thorin sacrifices friendship and honor to hoard it as Bilbo attempts to make him see reason.

One of the three 'Great Tales' of the Elder Days, J.R.R. Tolkien's The Children of Húrin takes place in Middle-earth thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The Children of Húrin is the first complete book by Tolkien since the 1977 publication of The Silmarillion. Six thousand years before the One Ring is destroyed, Middle-earth lies under the shadow of the Dark Lord Morgoth.

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In The War of the Ring Christopher Tolkien takes up the story of the writing of The Lord of the Rings with the Battle of Helm's Deep and the drowning of Isengard by the Ents. This is followed by an account of how Frodo, Sam and Gollum were finally brought to the Pass of Kirith Ungol, at which point J.R.R. Tolkien wrote at the time: 'I have got the hero into such a fix that not even an author will be able to extricate him without labour and difficulty'....

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron. It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion...