Download Cover

The History of Middle-earth: Part 2 – The Lord of the Rings

By Christopher Tolkien, Original author J. R. R. Tolkien

A new one-volume edition of the four books which comprise The History of The Lord of the Rings.

J.R.R. Tolkien is famous the world over for his unique literary creation, exemplified in The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. What is less well known, however, is that he also produced a vast amount of further material that greatly expands upon the stories that were published, and which herein gives added life to the tales of the hobbits, Gandalf and the quest of the Fellowship as told in The Lord of the Rings.

It was to this enormous task of literary construction that Tolkien’s youngest son and literary heir, Christopher, applied himself to produce the monumental and endlessly fascinating series of twelve books, The History of Middle-earth.

This brand new hardback edition brings together volumes VI – IX of The History of Middle-earth – The Return of the Shadow, The Treason of Isengard, The War of the Ring and Sauron Defeated – into one volume. Together these books give a fascinating and complete account of the writing of The Lord of the Rings, and provide the reader with numerous additional scenes, together with rare maps and illustrations, which never made it into the final book, including the epilogue in its entirety.

Epic in scope and extent, this second hardback volume of a planned trilogy will present the reader with a unique opportunity: to collect a complementary set of each hardback volume in The Complete History of Middle-earth series.

Format: Hardback
Release Date: 06 Jan 2003
Pages: 2032
ISBN: 978-0-00-714916-2
Price: £60.00 (Export Price) , £60.00, €None
Christopher Tolkien, born on 21 November 1924, was the third son of J.R.R. Tolkien. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot. At the end of the war he returned to Oxford University and became a Fellow and Tutor in English of New College in 1964, lecturing in the University on early English and northern literature. Appointed by J.R.R. Tolkien to be his literary executor, he devoted himself after his father’s death in 1973 to the editing and publication of unpublished writings, notably The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, the twelve volumes collectively known as The History of Middle-earth, and The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin. In 1975 he moved with his wife Baillie to live in France. He died in 2020 at the age of 95.

‘One marvels anew at the depth, breadth and persistence of J.R.R. Tolkien’s labour. No one sympathetic to his aims - the invention of a secondary universe - will want to miss this chance to be present at the creation.’Publishers Weekly -