Every Tolkien Book, in Order

In his lifetime · 1937 to 1973

Published while Tolkien lived, up to his death on 2 September 1973. Two Middle-earth stories, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, with poems, songs and stories from outside it.

1. 1937

   The Hobbit

   Bilbo's journey with thirteen Dwarves to the Lonely Mountain and the Battle of Five Armies. The 1951 edition rewrote the riddle scene so the Ring became the One Ring.

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2. 1949

   Farmer Giles of Ham

   A comic mock-medieval tale: a farmer, a reluctant sword called Tailbiter, a giant and the dragon Chrysophylax.

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3. 1954

   The Lord of the Rings

   Frodo's quest to destroy the One Ring, from Bilbo's party in 3001 to the Grey Havens in 3021, with Appendices that reach back through the Ages.

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4. 1962

   The Adventures of Tom Bombadil

   Sixteen poems presented as hobbit verse from the Red Book, illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

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5. 1964

   Tree and Leaf

   The essay On Fairy-stories, where Tolkien sets out what fantasy is for, paired with the story Leaf by Niggle.

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6. 1967

   The Road Goes Ever On

   Donald Swann's settings of poems from The Lord of the Rings, with Tolkien's notes on the Elvish songs written out in his own hand.

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7. 1967

   Smith of Wootton Major

   A village boy swallows a star baked into a cake and is given passage into Faery. The last book Tolkien published in his lifetime.

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Christopher's hand · 1973 to 2020

From 1973 to Christopher's death in January 2020, most new books carry his editing. He built The Silmarillion from his father's drafts, then spent twelve volumes showing how those drafts changed.

1. 1975

   Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo

   Edited by Christopher Tolkien

   Tolkien's translations of three Middle English poems, edited by Christopher after his father's death.

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2. 1976

   Letters from Father Christmas

   Edited by Baillie Tolkien

   The illustrated letters Tolkien wrote to his children each December as Father Christmas, with the North Polar Bear and the goblins.

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3. 1977

   The Silmarillion

   Edited by Christopher Tolkien (with Guy Gavriel Kay)

   The Elder Days from the Music of the Ainur to the end of the First Age, with the fall of Númenor and the Rings of Power, built by Christopher from his father's drafts.

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4. 1980

   Unfinished Tales

   Edited by Christopher Tolkien

   Tales left unfinished: Tuor's coming to Gondolin, Túrin's wanderings, Aldarion and Erendis, the Istari, Cirion and Eorl, the hunt for the Ring.

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5. 1981

   The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

   Edited by Humphrey Carpenter, with Christopher Tolkien

   Tolkien explaining his own invention to readers, publishers, friends and his son Christopher, chosen by Humphrey Carpenter.

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6. 1982

   Mr. Bliss

   Facsimile of Tolkien's own manuscript

   A picture book Tolkien wrote and drew for his children: Mr Bliss, his new motor-car and a Girabbit.

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7. 1983to 1996

   The History of Middle-earth

   Edited by Christopher Tolkien · twelve volumes

   Christopher's twelve-volume record of how the whole legendarium was written: the lost tales, the long poems, the Silmarillion in each of its forms, and the drafting of The Lord of the Rings.

   The twelve volumes

   1. 1983

      The Book of Lost Tales, Part I

      The earliest form of the mythology, from the Music of the Ainur to the Flight of the Noldoli, told to the mariner Eriol.

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   2. 1984

      The Book of Lost Tales, Part II

      The first versions of Beren and Tinúviel, Túrin, the fall of Gondolin and Eärendel's voyage.

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   3. 1985

      The Lays of Beleriand

      Tolkien's long poems on Beleriand, the Lay of the Children of Húrin and the Lay of Leithian, with C.S. Lewis's mock-scholarly commentary on the second.

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   4. 1986

      The Shaping of Middle-earth

      The Sketch of the Mythology, the Quenta Noldorinwa, the first map of Beleriand and the earliest Annals.

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   5. 1987

      The Lost Road and Other Writings

      The abandoned time-travel novel The Lost Road, the first versions of the fall of Númenor, the 1937 Quenta Silmarillion and the Etymologies.

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   6. 1988

      The Return of the Shadow

      The first drafts of The Lord of the Rings, from Bilbo's party to the Mines of Moria, when Strider was still a hobbit called Trotter.

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   7. 1989

      The Treason of Isengard

      The drafting of The Lord of the Rings from Moria to the fall of Isengard, with the first map of Middle-earth.

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   8. 1990

      The War of the Ring

      The drafts from the fall of Saruman to the Black Gate: Frodo's road to Cirith Ungol and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

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   9. 1992

      Sauron Defeated

      The end of The Lord of the Rings in draft, with its abandoned epilogue, The Notion Club Papers and The Drowning of Anadûnê.

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   10. 1993

       Morgoth's Ring

       The later Silmarillion: the Annals of Aman, the essays called Myths Transformed, and the Athrabeth, an Elf and a mortal woman arguing about death.

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   11. 1994

       The War of the Jewels

       The Grey Annals, the later Quenta, the Wanderings of Húrin and the essay Quendi and Eldar, the last of the Elder Days material.

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   12. 1996

       The Peoples of Middle-earth

       Drafts of the Appendices, essays on the Third Age and on languages, and some of the last things Tolkien wrote, in 1972 and 1973.

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   The boxed set →
8. 1998

   Roverandom

   Edited by Christina Scull & Wayne G. Hammond

   A dog turned into a toy by a wizard travels to the moon and under the sea. Written for his sons in 1925.

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9. 2007

   The Children of Húrin

   Edited by Christopher Tolkien

   Túrin's whole life as one continuous tale, from his birth in 464 to his death in 499, illustrated by Alan Lee.

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10. 2009

    The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun

    Edited by Christopher Tolkien

    Two long poems retelling the Norse legend of Sigurd and the Völsungs, written in the verse forms of the Old Norse Edda.

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11. 2013

    The Fall of Arthur

    Edited by Christopher Tolkien

    An unfinished poem on Arthur's last campaign and Mordred's treachery, with Christopher's essays on how it touched the Silmarillion.

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12. 2014

    Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary

    Edited by Christopher Tolkien

    Tolkien's prose translation of Beowulf, with the commentary from his Oxford lectures.

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13. 2015

    The Story of Kullervo

    Edited by Verlyn Flieger

    Tolkien's retelling of a tale from the Finnish Kalevala, begun in 1914, with Túrin's story already visible in it. Edited by Verlyn Flieger.

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14. 2017

    Beren and Lúthien

    Edited by Christopher Tolkien

    Christopher sets the versions of the tale side by side, from the 1917 Tale of Tinúviel to the Lay of Leithian, illustrated by Alan Lee.

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15. 2018

    The Fall of Gondolin

    Edited by Christopher Tolkien

    Tuor's coming to the hidden city and its fall, every version gathered in one book, illustrated by Alan Lee. Christopher's last book as editor.

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Other hands · 2020 on

Since 2020 the editors are other hands. Carl F. Hostetter edited the late essays in The Nature of Middle-earth, and Brian Sibley gathered The Fall of Númenor.

1. 2021

   The Nature of Middle-earth

   Edited by Carl F. Hostetter

   Tolkien's late essays on Elves, Men, time, immortality and the lands of Middle-earth, edited by Carl F. Hostetter.

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2. 2022

   The Fall of Númenor

   Edited by Brian Sibley

   The Second Age set out along the Tale of Years, gathered from texts already in print, with paintings and drawings by Alan Lee.

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