Morgoth's Ring: The Later Silmarillion, Part One: The Legends of Aman

Christopher Tolkien

Jun 2023 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

In Morgoth's Ring, the tenth volume of The History of Middle-earth and the first of two companion volumes, Christopher Tolkien describes and documents the legends of the Elder Days, as they were evolved and transformed by his father in the years before he completed The Lord of the Rings. The text of the Annals of Aman, the "Blessed Land" in the far West, is given in full. And in writings never before published, we can see the nature of the problems that J.R.R. Tolkien explored in his later years as new and radical ideas, portending upheaval in the heart of the mythology. At this time Tokien sought to redefine the old legends, and wrote of the nature and destiny of Elves, the idea of Elvish rebirth, the origins of the Orcs, and the Fall of Men. His meditation of mortality and immortality as represented in the lives of Men and Elves led to another major writing at this time, the "Debate of Finrod and Andreth," which is reproduced here in full. "Above all," Christopher Tolkien writes in his foreward, "the power and significance of Melkor-Morgoth...was enlarged to become the ground and source of the corruption of Arda." This book indeed is all about Morgoth. Incomparably greater than the power of Sauron, concentrated in the One Ring, Morgoth's power (Tolkien wrote) was dispersed into the very matter of Arda: "The whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's Ring."

About the author

Christopher Reuel Tolkien was born on November 21, 1924 in Leeds, England. He is author J.R.R. Tolkien's youngest son and is known for having edited and published much of his father's work posthumously, including The Children of Húrin. Christopher Tolkien, who grew up in Oxford, U.K., listening to tales of the Bagginses and their adventures, set to work as his father's editor far earlier than that. He was an editor from the age of 5, catching inconsistencies in his father's bedtime tales, and was promised tuppence by his father for every mistake he noticed in "The Hobbit". As a young man he was typing up manuscripts and drawing maps of Middle-earth and around the time he was commissioned an officer in the [Royal Air Force] in 1945, his father was already calling him his chief critic and collaborator. He was also responsible for composing the original map of Middle-earth included with the The Lord of the Rings series when it was first published in the mid-1950s. Christopher also brought us The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, The History of Middle-earth series and many others. Christopher Tolkien passed away on January 16, 2020 at the age of 95.