“Gil-galad was an Elven-king… the last whose realm was fair and free.”

So Samwise Gamgee recites in The Fellowship of the Ring, pulling from his memory a snippet of “The Fall of Gil-galad.” Bilbo Baggins translated the poem from an ancient tongue and it made such an impression on Samwise that it comes to the hobbit’s mind when Aragorn mentions Gil-galad. This despite the fact that Gil-galad fell thousands of years before Samwise’s time.

That a poem about Gil-galad persists into the Third Age says much of this pivotal character in Middle-earth’s long history. The most influential beats of the High Elven King’s story occur during the Second Age of Middle-earth, the setting of the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. A character whose name means “Star of Radiance,” Gil-galad is a beacon of hope and action. As the Second Age begins, Middle-earth is recovering from the defeat of Morgoth, an insidious being of darkness, and the end of the War of Wrath. Weary from the battle, many in the realms of Middle-earth want to linger in respite, believing evil to be entirely vanquished.

But not Gil-galad.

It’s nuts to think that a character like Celebrimbor is so critical to The Lord of the Rings lore and yet Tolkien barely touched on him in his books. Though Tolkien did once write, in a letter to his publisher, of welcoming the idea of other creatives coming in the future and elaborating on the worlds that he created.

Well, Tolkien strewed plenty of seeds ready to be gathered up and sown — allowing the team behind Prime Video’s new landmark Middle-earth based series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power to grow a new screen adventure from his writings. Celebrimbor is one such kernel, the regal Elf who is both mentioned in The Lord of the Rings and features in Tolkien’s appendices – the source material which inspired The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. The character is responsible for both crafting the three Elven Rings and keeping them out of Sauron’s reach.

Celebrimbor’s story is a fascinating one – and one which the new show is set to explore and build on in some depth. We can’t wait – and if you’re a Tolkien fan you probably can’t either. But wait we must, at least until the show premieres in September. So, before then, we’re bringing you tantalizing exclusive first-look images of the character of Celebrimbor as he will appear in The Rings of Power, alongside an overview of the character as outlined by Tolkien — and an in-depth chat with actor Charles Edwards, who plays the pivotal Elf, shedding new light on the role Celebrimbor plays.

The Great Tales Never End: Essays in Memory of Christopher Tolkien

• Hardback
  
• 232 pages, 234 x 156 mm
  
• 51 colour illustrations
  
• ISBN: 9781851245659
  
• Publication 24th June 2022(UK) 2nd September 2022(US)
  

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Urulókë wrote:

In Catherine McIlwaine's introduction, we are given a brief but entertaining and illuminating glimpse into the life of Christopher from childhood through his passing in 2020. We also get some wonderful glimpses of JRR Tolkien as well - one of my favorites is the invitation to Christopher's Coming of Age party in 1945, which offers the following guidance: "Carriages at midnight. Ambulances at 2 a.m. Wheelbarrows at 5 a.m. Hearses at daybreak." Another interesting tidbit mentioned is that in 1967 not only did JRR Tolkien name Christopher literary executor, but also (pre-emptively) co-author of 'The Silmarillion'.

Trotter wrote:

Probably my favourite picture of J.R.R. and Christopher at the start of the book. A comprehensive overview of Christopher’s life and career. A fantastic invite to 21st Birthday “Carriages at Midnight, Ambulances at 2am, Wheelbarrows at 5am and Hearses at daybreak”

Trotter wrote:

Timeline from 1924-2020, really useful publication information.

Urulókë wrote:

Maxime Pascal writes a beautiful eulogy for Christopher (translated into English by his wife, Baillie) that describes his family life, his writings, and his friendships and loves.

Trotter wrote:

This was delivered at Christopher Tolkien's funeral, in French and English translation, very moving and heart-felt.

Du monde de Tolkien, les livres

fondateurs avaient été édités

Ils prospéraient tels de très grands

arbres, mais c’est toi qui a révélé la forêt

Of the world of Tolkien, the founding

books had been published

They prospered like tall trees, but it is you

who revealed the forest

Urulókë wrote:

Priscilla gives us a generous handful of memories from growing up with Christopher - little glimpses into activities and experiences they shared over the decades - it feels like a warm Sunday afternoon sharing tea and conversation with Priscilla as she remembers her closest brother.

Trotter wrote:

Priscialla gives us a different view on her brother as a member of her family. I really liked the anecdote about when Christopher returned from South Africa, he was able to bring food which was very important during rationing.

Urulókë wrote:

Vincent Ferré's piece, "The Son Behind the Father" looks at Christopher's publications and statements he made about them, and pulls together a thread showing that Christopher was a literary author in his own right, and very much to the benefit of his father's books that he worked on, not just as an editor of those books.

Trotter wrote:

Describes Christopher’s role as a storyteller, then as a literary critic, fiction writer. Christopher was very humble about his role and Vincent shows that he should not have been.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

(quote from Ferré) "Too often in the mainstream critical discourse on The Silmarillion, only the last word (‘edited’) has remained. Yet in his foreword to Unfinished Tales (published after The Silmarillion, in 1980), Christopher Tolkien placed small stones that the reader (as in the well-known fairy-tale) may find in the huge forest of texts: ‘I have indeed treated the published form of The Silmarillion as a fixed point of reference of the same order as the writings published by my father himself, without taking into account the innumerable “unauthorised” decisions between variants and rival versions that went into its making."

Urulókë wrote:

Verlyn Flieger makes a fascinating connection between Sam and the Music of the Ainur, and how The Lord of the Rings ended up being the end-piece to Tolkien's entire legendarium.

Trotter wrote:

Discusses the publication of the Lord of the Rings and the difficulties with the Silmarillion and the musical motif within the works, which has come out through Christopher’s work on his fathers notes.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

(quote fro Flieger) "Christopher Tolkien’s serial publication from 1977 to 2018 of his father’s entire legendarium has given us that larger framework. We now have the interior history of Tolkien’s fictive world from its lofty creation in celestial music to Sam Gamgee’s homely return to Bag End at the end of the Third Age."

Urulókë wrote:

John Garth's "The Chronology of Creation" follows some of his research into the restricted "Lost Tales" materials in the Bodleian, in his ongoing efforts to date when these stories were written. It is extremely detailed and well written, worth re-reading as it ties together neatly the genesis of Tolkien's legendarium and answers some perplexing riddles in what was written when.

Trotter wrote:

John looks at the dating of the writing of the Book of Lost Tales and presents compelling evidence that Tolkien misremembered the date and that it was earlier than he stated.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

(quote from Garth) “All the data mentioned above can indeed be squared with Tolkien’s recollection, but not straightforwardly. It demands that we picture him repeatedly making creative decisions in 1917 and then undoing them in 1919, only to revert to his first position thereafter.”

Urulókë wrote:

Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull's essay on Tolkien's maps is my favorite in the book - a great chronological (and topographical) look at Tolkien's map making from the earliest drafts of the legendarium, and through The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings - including Christopher's essential contributions to the cartography of Middle-earth.

Trotter wrote:

A wonderful essay on Tolkien as a map-maker, maps for the Silmarillion, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings and the immense help that Christopher gave for the maps for the Lord of the Rings as Tolkien could not finish them for publication. Christopher spent 24 hours continuously on the large scale map of Rohan, Gondor and Mordor to meet the deadlines.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

(quote from Hammond and Scull) "Unusually among his maps, Tolkien oriented the final Thror’s Map with east at the top, probably because it now needed to be (as an endpaper spread) horizontal instead of vertical, rather than as a nod to the pre-fifteenth-century mappamundi tradition (in which east was most significant, as the location of the Earthly Paradise). In a prefatory note for the third (1966) edition of The Hobbit, Tolkien explained that eastward orientation was ‘usual in dwarf-maps’."

Urulókë wrote:

Carl Hostetter's essay on the challenges and rewards of decrypting Tolkien's handwriting - a task at which Christopher was a master, and Carl not far behind, but even JRR Tolkien himself couldn't always decipher his own handwriting, as shown in one of the four fantastic examples published here for the first time.

Trotter wrote:

Carl’s essay is on the task of deciphering Tolkien’s manuscripts and the expertise that Christopher gained in this area. Some manuscripts are shown, and Carl expands on how they were deciphered. This is really useful for anyone who intends to try and decipher Tolkien’s handwriting from manuscripts or letters.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

(quote from Hostetter) "Tolkien’s extant creative writings span seven decades. In that time, not only did his conceptions of his mythology change, sometimes radically, but so too did his literary style, his tone, his handwriting, and even his choice of writing implements – e.g. nib-pen versus pencil versus (from the 1950s on) ball-point pen – and his sources of paper. Only very rarely would Tolkien himself indicate when any given text or part thereof was written."

Urulókë wrote:

Stuart D. Lee writes about The first BBC Radio production of The Lord of the Rings, that was aired in the 1950s - prior to this excellent essay, it was only scant mention in Tolkien's letters that we had available to us, but Lee was able to find significant material in the BBC archives for this essay.

Trotter wrote:

Stuart looks at the 1955-56 BBC dramatization of the Lord of the Rings and addresses the thorny subject of adapting Tolkien for performances. Tolkien did adapt part of the book for the Radio Series and was very frustrated by the small amount of broadcast time available and the huge amount of cutting that was then involved. So much was cut of the second series that it no longer made narrative sense.

Urulókë wrote:

Tom Shippey writes "'King Sheave' and 'The Lost Road'" where he delves into the framework that Tolkien was struggling with for his time travel/historical narratives published in volumes 5 (The Lost Road) and 8 (Sauron Defeated) of The History of Middle-earth by Christopher Tolkien. A fascinating look at a less-well known area of Tolkien's creative writing.

Trotter wrote:

Tom discusses Tolkien’s poem King Sheave which is published in the HoMe volume “The Lost Road”

Urulókë wrote:

Brian Sibley closes out the essays with "Down From the Door Where it Began...", looking at all of the doors and portals that Tolkien uses in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. There are a lot of doors that Tolkien makes use of, and Sibley does an admirable job (and well illustrated) taking us through them.

Trotter wrote:

Brian looks at Door’s and Portals in the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. An example in the Hobbit is that the story starts and ends at Bag-end, the door is a key element as it appears in the Hill drawing at the start of the book and The Hall at Bag-End at the end of the book.

Trotter wrote:

Bibliography covers books, Articles, notes, interviews, Maps, Audio and Film

A great treat at the end of the book is a reproduction of Christopher’s father’s inscription in his ROTK in Quenya.

‘With this the long tale ends and my extended long day is complete, dear [one] of sons I give it to be read with love’

Press release

HarperCollins is proud to announce the publication in November 2022 of THE FALL OF NÚMENOR by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by writer and Tolkien expert, Brian Sibley, and illustrated by acclaimed artist, Alan Lee. The book will be published globally by HarperCollinsPublishers and in other languages by numerous Tolkien publishers worldwide.

Presenting for the first time in one volume the events of the Second Age as written by J.R.R. Tolkien and originally and masterfully edited for publication by Christopher Tolkien, this new volume will include pencil drawings and colour paintings by Alan Lee, who also illustrated The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and went on to win an Academy Award for his work on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth 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.

It was not until Christopher Tolkien presented The Silmarillion for publication in 1977 that a fuller story could be told for, though much of its content concerned the First Age of Middle-earth, there were at its close two key works that revealed the tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island-kingdom of Númenor, the Forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.

Christopher Tolkien provided even greater insight into the Second Age in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth in 1980, and expanded upon this in his magisterial 12-volume History of Middle-earth, in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales written by his father, many in draft form.

Now, using ‘The Tale of Years’ in The Lord of the Rings as a starting point, Brian Sibley has assembled from the various published texts in a way that tells for the very first time in one volume the tale of the Second Age of Middle-earth, whose events would ultimately lead to the Third Age, and the War of the Ring, as told in The Lord of the Rings.

The Hobbit was first published in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. Each has since gone on to become a beloved classic of literature and an international bestseller translated into more than 70 languages, collectively selling more than 150,000,000 copies worldwide. Published in 1977, The Silmarillion sold more than one million copies in its first year of publication and has gone on to be translated into almost 40 languages.

Brian Sibley says: ‘Since the first publication of The Silmarillion forty-five years ago, I have passionately followed Christopher Tolkien’s meticulous curation and scholarship in publishing a formidable history of his father’s writings on Middle-earth. I am honoured to be adding to that authoritative library with The Fall of Númenor. I hope that, in drawing together many of the threads from the tales of the Second Age into a single work, readers will discover – or rediscover – the rich tapestry of characters and events that are a prelude to the drama of the War of the Ring as is told in The Lord of the Rings.

Alan Lee says: ‘It is a pleasure to be able to explore the Second Age in more detail, and learn more about those shadowy and ancient events, alliances and disasters that eventually led to the Third Age stories we are more familiar with. Wherever I had the opportunity when working on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, I tried to imbue pictures and designs with an appropriate antiquity, an overlayering of history and of echoes of those older stories, and The Fall of Númenor has proved a perfect opportunity to dig a little deeper into the rich history of Middle-earth.’

The Fall of Númenor will be published by HarperCollins with a simultaneous global publication date of November 2022, and subsequently in translation around the world.

The streaming series, The Rings of Power, set during the Second Age of Middle-earth, will be released by Amazon Prime in September 2022.

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