For the first time ever a very special edition of the forerunner to The Lord of the Rings
illustrated throughout in colour by J.R.R. Tolkien himself and with the complete text printed
in two colours. The Silmarilli were three perfect jewels fashioned by Fëanor most gifted of
the Elves and within them was imprisoned the last Light of the Two Trees of Valinor. But the
first Dark Lord Morgoth stole the jewels and set them within his iron crown guarded in the
impenetrable fortress of Angband in the north of Middle-earth. The Silmarillion is the history
of the rebellion of Fëanor and his kindred against the gods their exile from Valinor and
return to Middle-earth and their war hopeless despite all the heroism against the great
Enemy. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back and
in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part. The book also includes
several shorter works: the Ainulindalë a myth of the Creation and the Valaquenta in which
the nature and powers of each of the gods is described. The Akallabêth recounts the downfall of
the great island kingdom of Númenor at the end of the Second Age and Of the Rings of Power
tells of the great events at the end of the Third Age as narrated in The Lord of the Rings .
Tolkien could not publish The Silmarillion in his lifetime as it grew with him so he would
leave it to his son Christopher Tolkien to edit the work from many manuscripts and bring his
father's great vision to publishable form so completing the literary achievement of a
lifetime. This special edition presents anew this seminal first step towards mapping out the
posthumous publishing of Middle-earth and the beginning of an illustrious forty years and more
than twenty books celebrating his father's legacy. This definitive new edition includes by way
of an introduction a letter written by Tolkien in 1951 which provides a brilliant exposition
of the earlier Ages and for the first time in its history is presented with J.R.R. Tolkien's
own paintings and drawings which reveal the breathtaking grandeur and beauty of his vision of
the First Age of Middle-earth.
