"Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life...But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves arrive on his doorstep...They have launched a plot to raid the treasure hoard guarded by Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon. Bilbo reluctantly joins their quest, unaware that...he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum"--P. [4] of cover.

The Two Towers is the second part of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic adventure, The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and the companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord, Sauron, by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard Gandalf in a battle with an evil spirit int he Mines of Moria; and at the Falls of Rauros, Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring...

A number-one New York Times bestseller when it was originally published, The Silmarillion is the core of J.R.R. Tolkien's imaginative writing, a work whose origins stretch back to a time long before The Hobbit. Tolkien considered The Silmarillion his most important work, and, though it was published last and posthumously, this great collection of tales and legends clearly sets the stage for all his other writing. The story of the creation of the world...

"The Fall of Gondolin centers on evil Morgoth, and his foe, Ulmo. At the heart of their power struggle is the hidden city of Gondolin, whose king, Turgon, is reviled by Morgoth. Guided unseen by Ulmo, the man Tuor sets out in search of Gondolin. There, he weds the king's daughter, with whom he has a son. As Morgoth attacks, Tuor and his family escape and Gondolin falls. Christopher Tolkien uses a 'history in sequence' mode in this edition. In...

Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal elf. Her father, a great elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, [Christopher Tolkien] has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts...

Never before published in a single volume, Tolkien's four novellas (Farmer Giles of Ham, Leaf by Niggle, Smith of Wootton Major, and Roverandom) and one book of poems (The Adventures of Tom Bombadil) are gathered together for the first time, in a fully illustrated volume. This new, definitive collection of works -- which had appeared separately, in various formats, between 1949 and 1998 -- comes with a brand-new foreword and endmatter, and with a...

Describes in detail, with over one thousand photographs, the battles, armies, and armor used in the War of the Ring based on J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, including battle plans and character histories and descriptions.