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The History of Middle-earth

The History of Middle-earth is a 12-volume series of books that collect and analyse material relating to the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, produced by his son Christopher Tolkien. They are extremely detailed, to the point of documenting scraps of paper that have been erased multiple times with hundreds of footnotes. In analysing this material in such detail, Christopher Tolkien seems to have been as obsessed with documenting the history of the writing of the Middle-earth stories as his father was with documenting the fictional history of Middle-earth itself. In these cases, it would seem that obsession is not necessarily a bad thing.

The first four books track the early history of the Silmarillion, but then discussion of the Silmarillion is postponed until part ten. Book five deals with the earliest Númenor story, and books six through nine discuss the development of The Lord of the Rings, book nine's second half again discussing the Númenor story. Book ten and eleven discuss the Annals of Beleriand and Annals of Aman, which are works which were developed together with the Silmarillion tradition and which also served as source material for the published Silmarillion. Book twelve lastly discusses assorted essays from Tolkien's last years of life.

1. The Book of Lost Tales 1 (1983)
2. The Book of Lost Tales 2 (1984)
3. The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
4. The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)
5. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
6. The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.1) (1988)
7. The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.2) (1989)
8. The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.3) (1990)
9. Sauron Defeated (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.4) (1992)
10. Morgoth's Ring (The Later Silmarillion v.1) (1993)
11. The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion v.2) (1994)
12. The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)

A thirteenth volume was published in 2002, The History of Middle-earth: Index. This book has completely integrated all the indices from the HoME books in one large index.

J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium Finished works The Hobbit | The Lord of the Rings | The Adventures of Tom Bombadil | The Road Goes Ever On | Bilbo's Last Song Posthumous works (edited by Christopher Tolkien) The Silmarillion | Unfinished Tales | The History of Middle-earth The Book of Lost Tales | The Lays of Beleriand | The Shaping of Middle-earth | The Lost Road and Other Writings | The History of The Lord of the Rings | Morgoth's Ring | The War of the Jewels | The  Peoples of Middle-earth List of Middle-earth articles | writings | characters | peoples | rivers | realms | ages

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