Wertzone Classics: Unfinished Tales by J.R.R. Tolkien
Upon his death in 1973, J.R.R. Tolkien left behind a vast collection of writings about Middle-earth. His third son and literary executor, Christopher, assembled some of these into The Silmarillion , published in 1977, but the question about what to do with the other reams of material was unclear. Aware that fans of Middle-earth would be eager for more material, even unfinished or existing only in rough drafts, he assembled Unfinished Tales and published it in 1980. Its success inspired him to proceed with the far more ambitious, twelve-volume History of Middle-earth project. Unfinished Tales occupies an awkward place in the Tolkien canon. Unlike the History series, which consists of almost exclusively non-canon material (early drafts and rough notes of material that was eventually finalised and published), the material in Unfinished Tales was specifically written by Tolkien to flesh out other parts of his mythos that were not explored in the books themselves. In particular, the wr...