Unfinished Tales

Unfinished Tales is one of the books of stories by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980.

Unlike The Silmarillion, for which the narrative fragments were modified to connect into a consistent and coherent work, the Unfinished Tales are presented as J. R. R. left them, with little more than names changed (the author having had a confusing habit of trying out different names for a character while writing a draft). Thus some of these begin or end awkwardly, while others are simply collections of "factual" information about Middle-earth. Each tale is followed by a long series of notes explaining inconsistencies and obscure points.

Unfinished Tales sold rather well, considering that it was a minimally-edited collection of posthumous works, and its success no doubt suggested embarking on the more ambitious work collectively titled The History of Middle-earth.

Contents

The First Age:

• Of Tuor[?] and his Coming to Gondolin
• Narn I Hîn Húrin (The Tale of the Children of Húrin[?])

The Second Age:

• A Description of the Island of Númenor
• Aldarion[?] and Erendis[?]: The Mariner's Wife
• The Line of Elros: Kings of Númenor
• The History of Galadriel and Celeborn

The Third Age:

• The Disaster of the Gladden Fields
• Cirion[?] and Eorl and the Friendship of Gondor and Rohan
• The Quest of Erebor[?]
• The Hunt for the Ring
• The Battles of the Fords of Isen[?]

Part Four

• The Drúedain[?]
• The Istari
• The Palantíri