Unfinished Tales

Unfinished Tales is one of the books of stories by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980.

Unlike The Silmarillion, for which the narrative fragments were modified to connect into a consistent and coherent work, the Unfinished Tales are presented as J. R. R. left them, with little more than names changed (the author having had a confusing habit of trying out different names for a character while writing a draft). Thus some of these begin or end awkwardly, while others are simply collections of "factual" information about Middle-earth. Each tale is followed by a long series of notes explaining inconsistencies and obscure points.

Unfinished Tales sold rather well, considering that it was a minimally-edited collection of posthumous works, and its success no doubt suggested embarking on the more ambitious work collectively titled The History of Middle-earth.

Though Unfinished Tales cannot be read as a book in its own right, any one who comes to it after reading The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion will indubitably find it interesting, as the book gives various nuggets of information about characters, events and places that are only hinted at in the other two books; e.g. the chapter on the Istari. 'Old' legends or myths of Middle-earth, like the actual story of Isildur's fall in the Gladden Fields, are given in their 'authoritative' versions. A number of other tales, like the history of Galadriel and Celeborn or the Black Riders' hunt for Frodo and the Ring, are told in different versions or from differing perspectives.

A particular gem is the story of Aldarion and Erendis, the only story of Numenor before its fall. A map of Numenor is also included in the book.

Contents

The First Age:

• Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin
• Narn I Hîn Húrin (The Tale of the Children of Húrin)

The Second Age:

• A Description of the Island of Númenor
• Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife
• The Line of Elros: Kings of Númenor
• The History of Galadriel and Celeborn

The Third Age:

• The Disaster of the Gladden Fields
• Cirion and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan
• The Quest of Erebor
• The Hunt for the Ring
• The Battles of the Fords of Isen

Part Four

• The Drúedain
• The Istari
• The Palantíri