The Histories of Middle-earth Series: The Book of Lost Tales: Part One

The extraordinary history of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien.

The Book of Lost Tales stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor. Embedded in English legend and English association, they were set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriol (or Ælfwine) to Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle, where Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the Tales are found the earliest accounts and original ideas of Gods and Elves; Dwarves and Orcs; the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; Nargothrond and Gondolin; and the geography and cosmology of the invented world.

Praise for Book of Lost Tales 1

“In these tales we have the scholar joyously gamboling in the thickets of his imagination. . . . A commentary and notes greatly enrich the quest.”—The Daily Telegraph