Tolkien Books

[TimmoUK]

I have read LOTR and The Hobbit but have not read any other of Tolkien books. It has been a long time since I read LOTR and The Hobbit so I am planning a re-read.

I'm just wondering what other books should I read and in what order? (I know of the Similarion and Unfinished Tales)

Thanks in advance.

 

[Extollager]

Timmo, I have been reading Tolkien since around 1967. Here then is one seasoned fan's suggestion:

Read the Tolkien books in publication order.

That means that, now that you have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, you would go on to read the delicious book of poems, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, first published around 1960. If possible read it in an edition illustrated by Pauline Baynes, who worked with the author on the project.

Then get hold of the music book, The Road Goes Ever On, and read Tolkien's appended material -- just a few pages about Elvish and the most ancient history of Middle-earth.

Go here to read a rare Tolkien treasure that many people have never seen, Tolkien's interview with Henry Resnik in the fanzine Niekas:

eFanzines.com - Niekas

You can find two light-hearted poems, "The Dragon's Visit" and "Once Upon a Time" in Lin Carter's 1969 anthology The Young Magicians. Whether they are Middle-earth items or not might be debated.

There's a poem, "Bilbo's Last Song," which was released in Tolkien's lifetime as a poster. It is now available as a book.

Having read these things, you will have read nearly all of what we had to go on up to Tolkien's death in 1973.* These are the things that he released during his lifetime. If you like, you might also consult the indispensable volume Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, which contains many nuggets of Middle-earth lore and reflections. However, only a little of this material was intended by JRRT for public dissemination.

You can read two delightful short works any time: Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major, which are not part of the Middle-earth mythos.

After this point, you may read a couple of works edited by Christopher Tolkien, JRRT's son. I myself see these as "canonical," while recognizing that Tolkien might well have changed his mind about some things had he lived to work more on them. The two works I have in mind are The Children of Húrin and The Silmarillion. I would recommend the former as the one to read first, since it is more accessible, and then the latter, wherein you will find the story in Children told concisely.

After that: Unfinished Tales and the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth. Chronicles' own J. D. Worthington has, I believe, read the entire set, and I hope he will comment here. My suggestion is that you begin with a treasure: Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth (in the book Morgoth's Ring). The HoME set also includes items such as some late ponderings, for his own benefit, by Tolkien, of topics such as the origin of Orcs, etc. Two unfinished novels: The Lost Road and The Notion Club Papers may be found in the volumes.

I hope you will consider my recommendations seriously. These are wonderful things, but I think the order I have suggested is probably the best way to approach them.

*I'm not mentioning fugitive bits that appeared in newspaper articles, magazine profiles, etc., likely as not with reporter errors, such as that Tolkien was working on "The Scimarrion" or whatever it was that one poor journalist mentioned....

 

[j d worthington]

I'm not entirely in agreement with Extollager on the order here, but then he has had a much more intimate contact with Tolkien scholarship than I.

However, for my own list, it would probably be as follows:*

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Tolkien Reader (which includes "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil" and "Farmer Giles of Ham", as well as Tolkien's wonderful essay, "On Fairy-Stories" and the story "Leaf by Niggle", which acts as an example of a fictional use of the theory presented in his essay; as well as a few other pieces.
Bilbo's Last Song
The Road Goes Ever On
"Smith of Wootton Major"
The Silmarillion
Unfinished Tales
The Father Christmas Letters
The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
The History of Middle-earth (12 vols.)
The History of the Hobbit
The Monsters and the Critics
The Children of Hurin
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun
The Fall of Arthur
his translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo

Other things, such as Roverandom, Mr. Bliss, etc., wherever you choose.

*This is for first time around. After that, I tend toward reading The Silmarillion before The Hobbit, as the majority of the material there occurs earlier in Middle-earth's history.

 

[Extollager]

Timmo, I think JD's list is a good one. It includes several things that I neglected to mention. I could be pretty happy with it except that I would insert The Children of Húrin before The Silmarillion. My feeling is that The Silmarillion is a book that can't be read, it can only be reread, i.e. in my experience it is a very great work of invented mythology and legend, but mostly (and appropriately) high and remote. If you follow my suggested order, The Children of Húrin will be the first book of First Age lore that you will read and will follow after your having read the LOTR appendices. It will ease you into The Silmarillion. When you have read The Silmarillion, you will be ready for the superb late piece Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, which is a dialogue between an Elf and a human woman about the fates of the two kindred. I only read it within the past few years and was much impressed. For me, the way to get into the 12 History of Middle-earth volumes has been to read the unfinished stories, which I mentioned above. There are also two short fragments, a sequel to LOTR called The New Shadow that Tolkien abandoned (rightly, I think), and a tale called "Tal-Elmar." But The Notion Club Papers is of particular interest. It is to be found in the HoME volume called Sauron Defeated. In it, dons in a near-future Oxford meet for conversation -- there's quite a bit of their talk about the genre of science fiction -- and then, eventually, to compare dreams. It becomes apparent that some of them share dream-encounters with events and personages from the Second Age of Middle-earth. Notion Club Papers may be quite a "different" experience for you. Tolkien worked on it, and dropped it, while he was composing LOTR. NCP has no hobbits.

 

[Extollager]

J. D. is right to list The Tolkien Reader. I'll refine that by suggesting that you get one of the earlier printings because they seem to me to have been printed on better paper (thus showing the Pauline Baynes art for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) to better advantage. Off-hand I think copies printed 1966-1970 should be OK. They feature wraparound cover art adapted from Baynes' beautiful design for The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.

Hammond and Scull's The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion includes an item prepared by Tolkien and released in his lifetime that contains interesting nuggets: namely, his directions to translators of LOTR on how to manage the names in the book. Hammond and Scull have much more of interest as well.

If you can get hold of it, Clyde Kilby's Tolkien and the Silmarillion is worthy of your attention. It contains detailed accounts of Kilby's visits with Tolkien. They became friends. A valuable picture of Tolkien in the last ten years or so of his life, and including some glimpses of the then-unpublished Silmarillion. I mention this because I do think it helps one into The Silmarillion to recall, or vicariously experience, the surmises and hungry anticipation felt, prior to is publication, by many readers. Now, of course, "everything" is in print and one can find "the answers" easily on the Internet, etc., but I think there is a little bit of a danger in this situation of making things too prosaic, though of course sometimes "information" is just what one wants.

 

[Extollager]

By contrast, the printing in these more recent editions may be comparatively poor:

---Timmo, I'm sorry -- I was forgetting that you hail from England, and these, of course, are American paperback editions. The information might be useful to some readers. I would be interested in hearing from people who have British paperbacks with The Adventures of Tom Bombadil -- is the reproduction of Pauline Baynes's art satisfactory?

(Her pictures for The Adventures use wash, indeed, the hardcover edition originally, at least, had orangeish color along with monochrome. Her drawings for Farmer Giles are mostly in a simple line style without shading, although even with this one, the recent printing of The Tolkien Reader that I have seen did not manage the reproduction very well.)

 

[farntfar]

I have a book called simply "Poems and Stories", which includes The Adventures of Tom Bombadil; the Homecomeing of Beorhtnoth Beorhthlm's Son; On Fairy Stories; Leaf by Niggle; Farmer Giles of Ham; and Smith of Wootton Major.

Is this the same as the above mentioned Tolkien Reader? It's illustrated by Pauline Baynes, but only has the Niggle tree in silver and green on the cover, which is otherwise black. Printed in 1980 by the looks of it.
The illustrations you show can be found within the texts, along with lots of others.

 

[TimmoUK]

Thanks for the help guys, very useful indeed!

 

[j d worthington]

I have a book called simply "Poems and Stories", which includes The Adventures of Tom Bombadil; the Homecomeing of Beorhtnoth Beorhthlm's Son; On Fairy Stories; Leaf by Niggle; Farmer Giles of Ham; and Smith of Wootton Major.

Is this the same as the above mentioned Tolkien Reader? It's illustrated by Pauline Baynes, but only has the Niggle tree in silver and green on the cover, which is otherwise black. Printed in 1980 by the looks of it.
The illustrations you show can be found within the texts, along with lots of others.

The contents certainly sound similar, though the American paperback volume neglected to include "Smith of Wootton Major":


The Tolkien Reader - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Corbier]

The reading order would all depend what interested you.

If you prefer The Hobbit, then I would suggest Tales from the Perilous Realm because it's filled with stories for children.

If you read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and were interested in the world itself, you might want to read The Silmarillion. That one is published later, but occurs before all the Bilbo and Frodo stuff; it focuses on the elves and the first men in Middle-earth. If you enjoy that, you can continue with the series called The History of Middle-earth.

But to some people that's a little too dry (perhaps Unfinished Tales as well), so I would personally recommend reading The Children of Húrin first.

I guess I'm trying to ask whether you could be a little more specific to what you liked about reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings...

 

[SirGeoffrey]

Tolkien was my first taste in real fantasy literature. The Hobbit was required reading for my seventh grade English class. Thank you, Ms. Young, for changing my life!

 

[BAYLOR]

Ive read The Hobbit, LOTR and the Silmarillion. all of them first rate stuff.

 

[Mirannan]

Just for an antidote to the high-falutin' LOTR (and even more the Silmarillion, which reads like a cross between a translation of some Norse epic and the Bible) try Bored of the Rings.

 

[River Boy]

Just for an antidote to the high-falutin' LOTR (and even more the Silmarillion, which reads like a cross between a translation of some Norse epic and the Bible) try Bored of the Rings.

Bored of it by page 3, same joke through the whole book. Same with 'The Bobbit'.