h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Excellent entry, thanks for writing it.

It really is about time read something other than the Silmarilion and The Hobbit and delved into a bit of Middle Earth background. Can you suggest a good place to start?

The Book of Lost Tales is a collection of early stories by J. R. R. Tolkien

Is that something that later turned up as The Silmarillion? (not that it would stop me reading it )

The Book of Lost Tales was the first major work of imagination by J.R.R. Tolkien, begun in 1916-17 when he was twenty-five years old and left incomplete several years later. It stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor, for these tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Embedded in English legend, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriol (or AElfwine) to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where elves dwelt; from him they learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In these Tales are found the earliest accounts and original ideas of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of Nargothrond and Gondolin; of the geography and cosmology of Middle-earth. Volume One contains the tales of The Music of the Ainur, The Building of valinor, The Chaining of Melko, The coming of the Elves and The Flight of the Noldoli, among others. Each tale is followed by a short essay by Christopher Tolkien, the author's son and literary executor.

I think you should read The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion which are all finished works, The Children of Hurin which is a padded out version of an incomplete telling of a story from the Silmarillion, and Unfinished Tales. After that it gets too detailed and obscure.

thanks - I think I have the unfinished tales (how many volumes are there?)

Don't you have the Internet?
Iron Crown Enterprises has some interesting reference materials.

Unfinished Tales is one volume. It includes the wonderful The Mariner's Wife which tells the story of a king and his adventures from the point of view of the wife who stayed at home. The only realistic woman in all of Tolkien's world. Unfortunately it just stops after 30 pages.

The History of Middle Earth is 12 volumes and I find it rather tedious. If you lapped up the Appendices of LR, you might enjoy it.

Internet and one i had said Volume One; so i assumed a Volume 2

The History of Middle-earth:

Book 1 - The Book of Lost Tales 1
Book 2 - The Book of Lost Tales 2
Book 3 - The Lays of Beleriand
Book 4 - The Shaping of Middle-earth
Book 5 - The Lost Road and Other Writings
Book 6 - The Return of the Shadow
Book 7 - The Treason of Isengard
Book 8 - The War of the Ring
Book 9 - Sauron Defeated
Book 10 - Morgoth's Ring
Book 11 - The War of the Jewels
Book 12 - The Peoples of Middle-earth

These are also available in a 3-part set:

Part 1 contains Books 1-5
Part 2 contains Books 6-9
Part 3 contains Books 10-12

Gleat thanks

ah I have the Book of Lost Tales volume 1. Maybe I'll read that this year.

also - do you think it's worth reading them or just the lost tales?

I don't think I'll buy any of them, but if I can get them in the library I'll probably read them.