Product Description

Throughout this vast and intricate mythology, says Publishers Weekly, "one marvels anew at the depth, breadth, and persistence of J.R.R. Tolkien's labor. No one sympathetic to his aims, the invention of a secondary universe, will want to miss this chance to be present at the creation." In this capstone to that creation, we find the chronology of Middle-earth's later Ages, the Hobbit genealogies, and the Western language or Common Speech. These early essays show that Tolkien's fertile imagination was at work on Middle-earth's Second and Third Ages long before he explored them in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings . Here too are valuable writings from Tolkien's last years: " The New Shadow," in Gondor of the Fourth Age, and" Tal-elmar," the tale of the coming of the Nœmen-rean ships.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #170972 in Books
• Published on: 1996-12
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

About the Author
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973), beloved throughout the world as the creator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. His chief interest was the linguistic aspects of the early English written tradition, but even as he studied these classics he was creating a set of his own.

Customer Reviews

Series ends on a High Note. Buy It!
`The Peoples of Middle Earth', the twelfth and last volume of unpublished notes by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by son Christopher Tolkien, is, for me at least, a high point in this series. I have read `Lord of the Rings' at least 10 times, but I have read the appendices at the end of `The Return of The King' at least 20 times. Until the publication of `The Silmarillion', these appendices were the only tonics to cool the great interest in the history of Middle Earth and its larger context. And, it is this depth of history twinkling through crevices in the main text which makes Tolkien's two principal novels, `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings' so engaging. And, in so many of the earlier volumes, the primary subject was the history of the elves in Middle Earth and their battles with Morgoth. I confess these tales did practically nothing for me. I was much more interested in the histories of the Dwarves, Tom Bombadil, Numenor, their colonies Gondor and Arnor, the Istari (the wizards), and the Hobbits. For the Hobbits, this volume covers just about everything you would ever want to know, usually three times over, in different versions of the same texts. It also has some goodies on Numenor and as good a chronology of the first three ages as you can ask for. But still, it has scant new information on the wizards and nothing on that great deux ex machina, Tom Bombadil, who remains totally unique in the great world of Middle earth.
The best single value of this volume is for those who own only the Second Edition or later of `Lord of the Rings'. Apparently, the First Edition `Prologue' or `Preface' was removed from the `Lord of the Rings' printing, and this is a significant loss. Otherwise, those who delight in genealogies, chronologies, and linguistics, will get a new and better dose of these confections in this last and (one of the best) of this series.
As an aside, I was interested to discover that Christopher Tolkien had a deadline for this volume which, either by coincidence or by design, coincided exactly with the release of the first of Peter Jackson's three movie interpretation of `Lord of the Rings'.

not the best in the series, but still a great topperoffer.
This book should have probably been placed as book number 9, but I don't freaking care what order these are in.

This book goes back and shows you the evolution of the appendices, warning----------this is almost as boring as books 6-8, but still very enjoyable for tolkien fans. i really liked the tale of years but didn't really care about the FULL, and I mean FULL hobbit family trees. So even though ALL of the info in this book si good, some of it much better than the rest.

This book will be bought by a lot of tolkien fans, maybe even some who didn't read the silmarillion or any of the history books. The reason they will buy this is for the "New Shadow", and while it's very good, it is not the reason you should buy this. The reasons you should buy this is that the whole book is filled with interesting stuff, like the last pages of this book which shows you the unfinished story of tar-elmar. A very intrigueing tale that i certainly don't want to give away for all you tolkien diehard.

Overall, a very nice finish to the series.

Also there needs to be at least A movie made about the silmarillion, or at least a tale from it. COME ON PETER JACKSON, I KNOW KING KONG WAS COOL, BUT GO BACK TO WHAT MADE YOU FAMOUS, PEOPLE SAY YOU WERE NOT THE BEST CHOICE AS DIRECTOR, WELL THEY ARE RETARDED AND I THINK THAT YOU COULD SURPASS EVEN YOURSELF IF YOU MADE TOOK ON THE PROJECT OF THE SILMARILLION.


THANK YOU CHRISTOPHER SO MUCH FOR PUBLISHING ALL OF TYOUR FATHERS works, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great stuff for the hardcore fan...
This one, 10 (Morgorth's Ring), 9 (End of the Third Age), and 5 (The Lost Road and Other Writings) are the most worthwile entries of the 12 volume series. Don't buy it for "The New Shadow", however, as it is only 20ish pages and Eldarion or Aragorn don't even come into the story...closest tie to LOTR is the brother of Bergil, son of Beregond. However, there's lots here for you Numenorian fans...full account of the Heirs of Elendil, additional background on the tale of Aragorn and Arwen, how the humans under the oppression of Sauron viewed the Numenorian ships in the 2nd age. Then you get the history of Lembas bread, some more info on the feud between the houses of Feanor and Fingolfin and why, and even some dwarf and Rohan info. The lone entry for Hobbits deals with their family trees in full, excrutiating detail, even more than the Appendicies in the LOTR. This is probably my second favorite entry overall (next to Morgorth's Ring), as it has the largest amount of interesting material in the whole series.