The Silmarillion

‘How, given little over half a century of work, did one man become the creative equivalent of a people?’The Guardian

‘Demanding to be compared with English mythologies… at times rises to the greatness of true myth’Financial Times

‘A creation of singular beauty… magnificent in its best moments’Washington Post

‘A grim, tragic, brooding and beautiful book, shot through with heroism and hope… its power is almost that of mysticism’Toronto Globe & Mail

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) was a distinguished academic, though he is best known for writing The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, plus other stories and essays.

Christopher Tolkien, born on 21 November 1924, is the third son of J.R.R. Tolkien. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force and the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot. At the end of the war he returned to Oxford University and became a Fellow and Tutor in English of New College in 1964, lecturing in the University on early English and northern literature. Appointed by J.R.R. Tolkien to be his literary executor, he has devoted himself since his father’s death in 1973 to the editing and publication of unpublished writings, notably The Silmarillion and Beowulf, and the collections entitled Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth. Since 1975 he has lived in France with his wife Baillie.