Tolkien did study many different languages and mythology from many different lands and that comes clear when we look at all those races and languages from all his books. If we put his "main" work aside, which was writing and concentrate to those other things that he did simultanously with that writing. He was a teacher, he had his other responsibilities but still he had time to create a story that has proven to be something unique. And it almost feels like he writed that when he had time to do it. How much groundwork his books needed and how he had endurance and enthusiasm to keep doing so many things at the same time? Do we ever know the true amount of that work he did to create those stories?
__________________
I am Tulkas the Valiant who laughs ever in the face of Good or Evil.
From the inside cover of my edition of Unfinished Tales:
Works by J. R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit Leaf by Niggle On Fairy Stories Farmer Giles of Ham The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth The Lord of the Rings The Adventures of Tom Bombadil The Road Goes Ever On (with Donald Swann) Smith of Wootton Major
Works Published Posthumously Sir Gawain, Pearl and Sir Orfeo The Father Christmas Letters The Silmarillion Pictures by JRR Tolkien Unfinished Tales The Letters of JRR Tolkien Mr Bliss Finn and Hengest The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays Roverandom
The History of Middle-earth by Christopher Tolkien
I don't see Morgoths ring there? This is one great example, when you think you have finally listed all Tolkien books, you find one amiss and therefore there could be more.
Yeah, Morgoth's Ring is Vol. X of the History of Middle-earth (HoMe) series. I'm glad some people know about it though, as it's a very good read and there are many interesting points brought up within it.
Morgoth's Ring is indeed published both as a seperate book, as well as in a larger volume (The History of Middle-Earth: Part Three) containing The War of the Jewels and The Peoples of Middle-Earth as well. However, Morgoth's Ring is indeed no more a seperate novel than any other book from the History of Middle-Earth, since each is merely a collection of J.R.R. Tolkien's works that his son Christopher published well after Tolkien's death. The entire collection is as follows:
I The Book of Lost Tales, Part One II The Book of Last Tales, Part Two III The Lays of Beleriand IV The Shaping of Middle-Earth V The Lost Road and Other Writings VI The Return of the Shadow VII The Treason of Isengard VIII The War of the Ring IX Sauron Defeated X Morgoth's Ring XI The War of the Jewels XII The Peoples of Middle-Earth
Not in one large book. All of HoME has been published both as twelve seperate volumes, as well as in three larger volumes. Books I-V can be found in The Complete History of Middle-Earth: Part One, books VI-IX in Part Two, and books X-XII in Part Three, as well as in their own seperate volumes.
The History of Middle-earth delves into a number of topics. There is quite a bit of original material, but a lot of it deals with Tolkien's earliest notions of things and the evolution of the stories that were put into publication. For example, volumes IV through IX deal with the process of the writing of Lord of the Rings. It shows many of Tolkien's early drafts and maps, up until nearly the final product. There are also writings from after the publication of certain works as well, since Tolkien's ideas were always evolving and changing.
Essentially, HoME can be broken up into three categories. Volumes I-III deal with the earliest conceptions of Tolkien, providing the groundwork for the entire "secondary world". Volumes IV-IX deal, as Narg said, with the evolutionary process of the writing of LotR. Volumes X-XII are Tolkien's latest writings, including earlier works (such as the Quenta Silmarillion) revisited, as well as wholly new essays (including The Return of the Shadow, an abandoned sequal to LotR).
