is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s World. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in look back, and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part. The tales of are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor. is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth and the rise of Númenor in the Second Age to the end of the War of the Ring, and provides those who have read and with a whole collection of background and new stories from the twentieth century’s most acclaimed popular author. stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor for the were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called . Embedded in English legend and English association, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriol to the lonely Isle where the Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the two volumes of the are found the earliest accounts of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of the geography and cosmology of Tolkien’s invented world. Published together for the first time, these four books collect the beginning of Christopher Tolkien’s forty-year career devoted to presenting his father J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth, a unique accomplishment that celebrates the greatest invented world in all of fantasy literature.