But the piece that follows it, "Narn i hin Hurin" (tale of the children of Hurin), is certainly another candidate for the title - an extensive recounting of the disaster-ridden lives of Turin and Nienor. The first section of the book begins with the expanded account of Tuor's early life and his mission to Gondolin which, for some, is the greatest of all tolkien's obscure writings. But if you manage to finish it you can reward yourself with Unfinished Tales, which deepens your enjoyment of "the Silmarillion" by providing more detailed (more gripping, more compulsively re-readable!) accounts of the same events, even though they are fragmentary and at-variance-with-other-writings. " The Silmarillion" is known to be a more difficult book- its presentational style renders it inaccessible to a lot of people. Unfinished Tales is indeed "the one truly essential set of supplementary/outtake material", and Tolkien scholars are strongly advised to pick this up as soon as they finish reading The Silmarillion. This is most assuredly not a book for Tolkien neophytes and should only be read by people with at least a basic knowledge of the Middle Earth saga. These little odd bits make up "Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth." The stories are not as interconnected as the Silmarillion was, but they are a solid and enjoyable read. tolkien's tales of Middle-Earth weren't restricted just to fantasy epic " Lord of the Rings." His life's work was spread over hundreds of stories and invented legends - some were compiled into " The Silmarillion." But some were left over - yes, there were even more stories that didn't make the cut. Ballantine Books also made an edition on September 1988 at $5.95.
17 Days later there came an American trade paperback edition by Houghton Mifflin (30.000 copies at $8.25). The first paperback edition appeared already one year later on 13 september 1982 by Unicorn / Unwin Paperbacks (15.000 copies at £2.95). In June 1981 there was a reset book club edition, by the Science Fiction Book Club (number of copies unknown at $6.50). Originally published by George Allen & Unwin on 2 October 1980 (number of copies not known, but the first three impressions together equalled 44.000 copies at £7.50) and by Houghton Mifflin on 18 November 1980 (80.000 copies at $15.00), also published by the Book-of-the-month Club. There is of course plenty of background detail and Tolkiens trademark descriptive passages read wonderfully well. Unlike ' The Silmarillion' (which is universally recognised as a vital part of tolkien's literary masterwork, but takes some effort to wade through the complexities of names, places, ages and references included in the earlier volume), 'Unfinished Tales' is suprisingly straightforward, by comparison The style of writing is, for the most part, comparable to the tone of Lord of the Rings, including many (not to be missed) moments of classic Tolkien humour, some bitter-sweet obervations on the human condition with regard to affairs of the heart and the spirit, and last but not least - lashings of swashbuckling adventure. 'Unfinished Tales', as the title aptly suggests, is a collection of tolkien's 'expanded' Middle Earth stories (mostly longer versions of tales from The Silmarillion, but there are plenty of revealing Lord of the Rings moments featuring old faves Gandalf, Elrond, The Nazgul, Balrogs et al) edited into a single volume by the authors son, Christopher Tolkien. Books by J.R.R.Tolkien - Unfinished Tales
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