J R R Tolkien Books

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J.R.R. Tolkien is considered by many to be the greatest author of fantasy to ever live. Best known for writing the Lord of the Rings books, Tolkien created a legacy that has continued to thrive in the decades since his death.

Order of The Lord of the Rings Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Hobbit 1937 Description / Buy
2 The Fellowship of the Ring 1954 Description / Buy
3 The Two Towers 1954 Description / Buy
4 The Return of the King 1955 Description / Buy

Order of Middle-Earth Universe Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Tolkien's World: Paintings of Middle-Earth 1992 Description / Buy
2 Poems From The Hobbit (Short Story) 1999 Description / Buy

Order of The History of Middle-Earth Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Book of Lost Tales, Part One 1983 Description / Buy
2 The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two 1984 Description / Buy
3 The Lays of Beleriand 1985 Description / Buy
4 The Shaping of Middle-earth 1986 Description / Buy
5 The Lost Road and Other Writings 1987 Description / Buy
6 The War of the Jewels 1994 Description / Buy
7 The History of Middle Earth Index 2002 Description / Buy
8 The Great Tales of Middle-Earth 2018 Description / Buy

Order of History Of The Lord Of The Rings Collections

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Return of the Shadow 1988 Description / Buy
2 The Treason of Isengard 1989 Description / Buy
3 The War of the Ring 1990 Description / Buy
4 Sauron Defeated 1992 Description / Buy

Order of Tales of Middle Earth Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Fall of Gondolin 2018 Description / Buy
2 The Fall of Númenor: and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth 2022 Description / Buy

Order of Later Silmarillion Collections

# Read Title Published Details
1 Morgoth's Ring: The Legends of Aman 1993 Description / Buy

Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Standalone Novels

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (Short Story) 1945 Description / Buy
2 Farmer Giles of Ham 1949 Description / Buy
3 Drawings by Tolkien 1976 Description / Buy
4 Roverandom 1998 Description / Buy
5 The Children of Húrin 2007 Description / Buy
6 The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún 2009 Description / Buy
7 The Story of Kullervo 2015 Description / Buy
8 The Lost Manuscript 2016 Description / Buy
9 Beren and Lúthien 2017 Description / Buy

Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Short Stories/Novellas

# Read Title Published Details
1 Smith of Wootton Major (Short Story) 1967 Description / Buy

Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Short Story Collections

# Read Title Published Details
1 Tales from the Perilous Realm 1949 Description / Buy
2 The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Short Story) 1962 Description / Buy
3 Tree and Leaf 1964 Description / Buy
4 The Tolkien Reader 1966 Description / Buy
5 Poems and Stories 1971 Description / Buy
6 Letters from Father Christmas 1976 Description / Buy
7 The Silmarillion 1977 Description / Buy
8 Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth 1980 Description / Buy
9 The Peoples of Middle-earth 1996 Description / Buy
10 A Tolkien Miscellany 2002 Description / Buy
11 The Fall of Arthur 2013 Description / Buy
12 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo ( With: Christopher Tolkien, Unknown) 2021 Description / Buy
13 The Battle of Maldon ( With: Peter Grybauskaus) 2023 Description / Buy

Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Non-Fiction Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary 1921 Description / Buy
2 Beowulf and the Critics 1936 Description / Buy
3 Tolkien on Fairy-stories 1939 Description / Buy
4 The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien 1981 Description / Buy
5 Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode 1982 Description / Buy
6 The Monsters and the Critics: The Essays of J.R.R. Tolkien 1983 Description / Buy
7 Father Christmas Letters (Short Story) 1994 Description / Buy
8 The Nature of Middle-Earth ( With: Carl F. Hostetter) 2021 Description / Buy

J.R.R. Tolkien Anthologies

# Read Title Published Details
1 Over the Rainbow 1983 Description / Buy
2 The Random House Book of Fantasy Stories 1997 Description / Buy
3 Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction 2008 Description / Buy
Print: Print PDF

Even though he was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa in 1892, J.R.R. Tolkien’s childhood was spent in England, the result of his mother’s decision to move to Sarehole, Birmingham following the death of his father Arthur Tolkien.

His mother, Mabel Tolkien, eventually passed away in 1904. The Tolkien children spent a lot of time in boarding houses and under the care of a Catholic Priest. A student of Germanic and Anglo-Saxon languages at Exeter College, not to mention Classic Literature, Tolkien eventually found his way into the First World War.

The author could count events like the Battle of the Somme under his achievements, though Tolkien probably looked more favorably on his military service because of his meeting and marriage to Edith Bratt, which happened during those years.

Illness eventually forced Tolkien to live the military, this opening the doors to his future as a renowned author. It all began with The Hobbit. Life after the military took Tolkien to places like the University of Leeds and Oxford University where, along with working as a professor, he formed a writing group with notable authors like Owen Barfield and C.S. Lewis.

Everyone has heard the story; that Tolkien was grading a student’s paper one day when he wrote a line about a creature known as a Hobbit. And before he knew what was happening, Tolkien had created a furry-footed character known as Bilbo Baggins who would go on to partake in a grand adventure that J.R.R. Tolkien titled The Hobbit.

The book was a massive success amongst children, even though Tolkien never meant for it to be a children’s book. And he proved as much when he produced its sequel, The Lord of the Rings, a series that took the concepts of the Hobbit and gave them a darker twist.

In the Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien did what no other writer had done before him, at least not to such great effect: he created a whole new world, one with its own peoples and cultures and languages.

The books came to life for readers, and while they were initially bashed by critics, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is considered by most readers to be the greatest series of fantasy novels ever written.

Eventually retiring from teaching in 1959, Tolkien went on to produce more stories set in the Lord of the Rings universe, stories that his children spent the decades following his death in 1973 organizing into cohesive stories.

Christopher, Tolkien’s son, continues to edit his father’s notes, producing more novels in the Lord of the Rings universe that are credited to J.R.R. Tolkien despite the fact that he is dead.

Tolkien meant for the Lord of the Rings Books to act as an allegory of the Two World Wars and the power even the smallest aspects and elements have to bring about great good and unspeakable evil.

J.R.R. Tolkien Awards

Tolkien’s work was the recipient of the Locus Award in 1978. The author also won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature in 1981.

J.R.R. Tolkien Books into Movies/TV

Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series was adapted into an animated film by Ralph Bakshi and Peter S. Beagle in 1978. Few have seen this adaptation which only covered a portion of the lord of the rings story.

Even less popular was the animated musical television movie adaptation of The Hobbit in 1977 and The Return of the King in 1980.

The most popular adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work to date is the Trilogy of movies released by New Line Cinema between 2001 and 2003 which finally brought The Lord of the Rings series to life in a manner that not only satisfied fans but exceeded expectations financially, this along with winning several Oscars.

Another trilogy of movies adapting The Hobbit novel was eventually produced between 2012 and 2014.

Best J.R.R. Tolkien Books

Tolkien is almost beyond reproach for some literary critics because of the strength of his body of work, with some of the best books from the author’s bibliography including:

The Hobbit: Bilbo Baggins was just another Hobbit living a comfortable life in his hole in the ground. Then he met Gandalf the Wizard and his band of merry dwarves, and he was sucked into an adventure he wouldn’t soon forget.

J.R.R. Tolkien’s first book is a charming story that takes a reluctant hero on a dangerous journey where he finds a ring with dangerous secrets but whose power could help him defeat a cruel dragon.

The Fellowship of the Ring: Long ago, The Dark Lord sought to enslave mankind by creating a ring within which he poured all his evil and Malice. But in a great war, that One Ring was taken from him. With his armies defeated and the ring lost, The Dark Lord was believed defeated. No one knew of the Hobbit Bilbo Baggins and the fact that he had found the ring all those centuries later.

Frodo Baggins is a young hobbit whose life is upended when he is saddled with the task of taking the One Ring to its destruction before The Dark Lord can reclaim it and enslave the world.

This is the Tolkien book that created his legacy, opening the doors to the vast world of the Lord of the Rings by taking a young and clueless hero and thrusting him into a great battle featuring mighty wizards, ancient fire demons and an All-Seeing Eye.

When Does The Next J.R.R. Tolkien book come out?

J.R.R. Tolkien doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is The Battle of Maldon and was released on June, 6th 2023. It is the newest book in the J.R.R. Tolkien Short Story Collections.

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