J.R.R. Tolkien's writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth collected for the first time in
one volume complete with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by renowned artist Alan
Lee. J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a dark age and not
very much of its history is (or need be) told. And for many years readers would need to be
content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and
its appendices including the forging of the Rings of Power the building of the Barad-dûr and
the rise of Sauron. It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion after his
father's death that a fuller story could be told. Although much of the book's content concerned
the First Age of Middle-earth there were at its close two key works that revealed the
tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island of Númenor. Raised out of the
Great Sea and gifted to the Men of Middle-earth as a reward for aiding the angelic Valar and
the Elves in the defeat and capture of the Dark Lord Morgoth the kingdom became a seat of
influence and wealth but as the Númenóreans' power increased the seed of their downfall would
inevitably be sown culminating in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Even greater insight
into the Second Age would be revealed in subsequent publications first in Unfinished Tales of
Númenor and Middle-earth then expanded upon in Christopher Tolkien's magisterial twelve-volume
The History of Middle-earth in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales
written by his father many in draft form. Now adhering to the timeline of The Tale of Years
in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one
comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth told substantially in
the words of Tolkien from the various published texts with new illustrations in watercolor and
pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art Alan Lee.
