TOLKIEN ANTHOLOGY DELUXE EDITION

J.R.R. Tolkiens writings on the Second Age of Middleearth, collected for the first time in one volume.J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middleearth as a dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Baraddr and the rise of Sauron.It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion after his fathers death that a fuller story could be told. Although much of the books content concerned the First Age of Middleearth, there were at its close two key works that revealed the tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island of Nmenor. Raised out of the Great Sea and gifted to the Men of Middleearth as a reward for aiding the angelic Valar and the Elves in the defeat and capture of the Dark Lord Morgoth, the kingdom became a seat of influence and wealth; but as the Nmenreans power increased, the seed of their downfall would inevitably be sown, culminating in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.Even greater insight into the Second Age would be revealed in subsequent publications, first in Unfinished Tales of Nmenor and Middleearth, then expanded upon in Christopher Tolkiens magisterial twelvevolume The History of Middleearth, in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales written by his father, many in draft form.Now, adhering to the timeline of The Tale of Years in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middleearth, told substantially in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts, with new pencil illustrations by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.