The Lost Road: and Other Writings: Book 5 (The History of Middle-earth)

Good read

A scholarly masterpiece

Nice book. Came as described.

A Great series of books from one of the world`s best authors.

A massive 13 volume work of Tolkein's work by his son Christopher. It's heavy reading but nice to dip into it from time to time especially if you have Tolkien's most famous works, you are a fan of Middle Earth and want to know more. Volumes 1 to 5 and 10 to 11 relate to "The Silmarillion", volumes 6 to 9 to "Lord of the Rings", volume 12 is an appendix and volume 13 an index. There is a shorter version of volume 9 "Sauron Defeated" called "End of the third age". They are available in hardcover which make a fine collection but not so easy to find and would cost nearly £300. I got them all as paperbacks for about £60 which is not a bad buy as you get plenty of insight into Tolkien's mind and how thorough his research was when he wrote "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings". There are numerous essays, quotes and different versions of his published works so you can see how involved he was with his creation and the meticulous care he took to fill in every detail.

Good

Just what I needed!

brilliant

Le considerazioni generali su questa collana le ho già espresse nel commento a LOST TALES 1, a chi può interessare. Ancora altre versioni delle storie della Prima Era con l’aggiunta di ben 4 versioni della caduta di Numenor. Un’ulteriore versione degli Annali. Come già detto poteva essere una buona idea trovare alcune idee iniziali poi abbandonate da J.R.R. Tolkien, ma sembra che il figlio Chistopher si sia fatto prendere la mano ed ha allungato versioni e commenti, forse solo per avere più libri da vendere. Nonostante questo, con fatica, si riesce a trovare qualcosa di interessante per gli appassionati della saga.

Awesome

The Lost Road was an abandoned story by Tolkien, perhaps superseded by the need for him to get the anthology that formed 'The Silmarillion' ready for publication. As a result, there were a hoard of manuscripts, some in various versions all cleanly written, found by his son Christopher who set to get these annotated for both the scholar as well as the lay enthusiast. I fall well into the latter category. So when these books were published in 1987, I found I could only get my hands on half of the 12 volumes, and only now have been able to locate and buy the missing volumes, of which Volume V is one of them. So I find myself delighted finally to have these to read, and to my mature mind (I first read LOTR at 13 and I'm 56) these fill in many gaps and questions harboured over decades. I simply refused to get the paperback and kept looking for the same edition hardcover to make the shelf of these volumes look perfect. The Lhammas is a long essay found here you can't find anywhere else. But the treasure within must surely be the chapter 'Quenta Silmarillion' (page 199), this 1987 US hardcover edition. This is not the story itself but a detailed commentary by Christopher of his father's development of the Silmarillion, of its many revisions, and where on the actual manuscript there were revisions and corrections made by the author. This is fascinating to read: you can imagine yourself looking at the sheets of written or typed paper, and Christopher somewhat over your shoulder explaining, 'you see here, from this point...' What I liked most was the undistllled serve of information, unlike if you held a Tolkien Dictionary or encyclopaedia. The Appendix is spartan, containing genealogies, lists of names and a second Silmarillion Map, probably made in 1930s, and altered and added to it, which was to become the version published later on. Here he describes how these are originally four square sheets, pasted together, but the grid lines do not quite line up, and... (you will have to read this book to find out the rest, quite simply).

Nicht nur eine Sammlung von unveröffentlichten Geschichten: HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH ist die Chronik einer jahrzehntelangen literarischen Sisyphos-Arbeit. Im Zentrum steht die Evolution der Themen und Geschichten durch viele verschiedene, z.T. widersprüchliche oder schwer zu entziffernde Texte und Textfragmente. Wer sich darauf einlässt, wird mit einem tiefgehenden Verständnis für Tolkiens Lebenswerk belohnt. Anspruchsvolle Lektüre, ungeeignet für Leser, die nur neue Geschichten aus dem HdR-Universum suchen.