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The History of Middle-earth (abbreviated sometimes as HoME or THOME) is a 13-volume series of books that collects and analyses material relating to Middle-earth, twelve of which were compiled and edited by the son of J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien. The series is collectively a full study of the evolution of Tolkien's legendarium, featuring hundreds of transcripts, revisions, and poems.

Materials relating to The Hobbit are not included, but are covered instead in the separate authorized book, The History of The Hobbit: Mr Baggins and Return to Bag-End, by John D. Rateliff.

Overview[]

Most of the content consists of earlier versions of already published works by Tolkien, while other portions are completely new material. These books are exceedingly detailed, to the point of documenting scraps of paper (of J.R.R. Tolkien's) that had been erased multiple times with many footnotes. Christopher Tolkien thoroughly documents the history of the writing of the Middle-earth stories, with as much detail as his father documented the fictional history of Middle-earth itself.

The first two books introduce readers to The Book of Lost Tales, a mythology for England from which Tolkien drew ideas that eventually became the 'Silmarillion' mythology. The next three books follow the history of the emerging early mythology usually known as The Silmarillion. The discussion of the published book is deferred until book ten. Books six through nine discuss the development of The Lord of the Rings, book nine's second half discussing the story of Númenor (the first versions of which were covered in Book Five). Book ten and eleven discuss the Annals of Beleriand and Annals of Aman, works which were developed together with the Silmarillion tradition and which also served as source material for the published Silmarillion. Book twelve discusses the development of the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, followed by some assorted essays from Tolkien's last years of life.

Though not officially labeled as such, Unfinished Tales and The Nature of Middle-earth are often considered the unofficial thirteenth and fourteenth volumes of the series.[citation needed]

  1. The Book of Lost Tales Part One (1983)
  2. The Book of Lost Tales Part Two (1984)
  3. The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
  4. The Shaping of Middle-earth: The Quenta, The Ambarkanta, and The Annals (1986)
  5. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
  6. The Return of the Shadow (1988)
  7. The Treason of Isengard (1989)
  8. The War of the Ring (1990)
  9. Sauron Defeated (1992)
  10. Morgoth's Ring (1993)
  11. The War of the Jewels (1994)
  12. The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)
  13. The History of Middle-earth: Index (2002)

The official thirteenth volume, The History of Middle-earth: Index, completely integrates all indices from the other twelve books into one index.

After the twelfth volume was released, the most prominent Tolkien scholars at the time studied the series, and wrote essays on it culminating in Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, published in 2000.

Editions[]

The History of Middle-earth was first published by Houghton Mifflin Company starting in 1986, as single-colored hardcover volumes. In 2003, Del Rey Books (of Ballantine Books) published smaller mass-market paperback editions, with illustrated covers.

The collection was published as a single, three-volume set for the first time in 2002, by HarperCollins. In 2015, HarperCollins released a paperback edition of each volume, with black spines and cover-art by John Howe. In 2017, they released a special "collector's edition" of the series contained in three large, boxed volumes.

Gallery[]

Translations[]

Foreign Language Translated name
Afrikaans Die Geskiedenis van Middelste-aarde
Albanian Historia e Tokës së Mesme
Amharic መካከለኛ-የምድር ታሪክ
Arabic تاريخ الأرض الوسطى
Azerbaijani Orta Yerin Tarixi
Belarusian Cyrillic Гісторыя Міжзем'е
Bengali মধ্যম পৃথিবীর ইতিহাস
Bosnian Povijest Međuzemlja
Bulgarian Cyrillic Историята на средната земя
Burmese အလယ်အလတ်မြေ၏သမိုင်း
Cambodian ប្រវត្តិសាស្រ្តនៃផែនដីពាក់កណ្តាល
Catalan La Història de la Terra Mitjana
Cebuano Ang Kasaysayan sa mga tunga-tunga-yuta
Chinese 中土世界的歷史
Corsican A Storia di a Terra Media
Croatian Povijest Međuzemlja
Czech Historie Středozemě
Danish Historien om Midgård
Dutch De Geschiedenis van Midden-aarde
Esperanto La Historio de Mezo-tero
Estonian Keskmaa Ajalugu
Finnish Keski-maan Historia
French L'Histoire de la Terre du Milieu
Frisian De Skiednis fan midden-ierde
Galician A Historia da Terra-media
Georgian შუახმელეთის ისტორია
German Die Geschichte Mittelerdes
Greek Η Ιστορία της Μέσης Γης
Gujarati મધ્યમ પૃથ્વી ઇતિહાસ
Hausa Tarihin Tsakiyar duniya
Hebrew ההיסטוריה של הארץ התיכונה
Hindi मध्य पृथ्वी के इतिहास
Hmong Lub keeb kwm ntawm nruab nrab-lub ntiaj teb
Hungarian Középfölde Históriája
Icelandic Saga af Miðgarði
Indonesian Sejarah Tengah-bumi
Irish Gaelic Stair na lár-domhain
Italian La Storia della Terra di mezzo
Japanese 中つ国の歴史
Javanese Sajarah Tengah-bumi
Kannada ಇತಿಹಾಸ ಮಧ್ಯಮ ಭೂಮಿಯ
Kazakh Орта-жер тарихы (Cyrillic) Orta-jer tarïxı (Latin)
Korean 가운데땅의 역사
Kurdish Li ser Dîroka Navîn-erd (Kurmanji)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic Орто жер Тарыхы
Laotian ປະຫວັດສາດຂອງພາກກາງ, ແຜ່ນດິນໂລກi
Latvian Vēsture Vidējā-zemes
Lithuanian Viduržemio istorija
Luxembourgish D'Geschicht vun Mëtt Äerd
Macedonian Cyrillic историјата на Блискиот Земјата
Malaysian Sejarah pertengahan bumi
Marathi मध्य-पृथ्वी इतिहास
Maltese L-istorja ta ' l-ert tan-nofs
Mongolian Cyrillic дунд-дэлхий Түүхийн
Nepalese मध्य-पृथ्वीको इतिहास
Norwegian Historien om Midgard
Occitan l’Istòria de la Tèrra Mejana
Pashto د منځني ځمکه د تاريخ
Persian تاریخ از میانه زمین
Polish Historia Śródziemia
Portuguese A História da Terra-média
Punjabi ਮੱਧ-ਧਰਤੀ ਦੇ ਇਤਿਹਾਸ ਨੂੰ
Romanian Istoria Pământului de Mijloc
Russian История Средиземья
Samoan Le Talafaasolopito o le Lalolagi-ogatotonu
Scottish Gaelic Eachdraidh de Meadhan-talamh
Serbian Повијест Међуземља (Cyrillic) Povijest Međuzemlja (Latin)
Sindhi وچ ۾ زمين جي تاريخ
Sinhalese මැද-පෘථිවිය ඉතිහාසය
Spanish La historia de la Tierra Media
Sundanese Nu Sajarah Tengah-bumi
Swahili Historia ya Dunia-atikati
Swedish Historia Midgård
Tajik Cyrillic Таърихи Миёна-замин
Tamil மத்திய-புவி வரலாறு
Tatar Урта җир тарихы
Telugu మధ్య భూమి యొక్క చరిత్ర
Thai ประวัติศาสตร์มิดเดิลเอิร์ธ
Turkish Orta Dünya Tarihi
Turkmen Orta Ýer Taryhy
Ukrainian Cyrillic Iсторія Середзем'я
Urdu مڈل-زمین کی تاریخ
Uzbek Ўрта жаҳон тарихи (Cyrillic) O'rta jahon tarixi (Latin)
Welsh Hanes Daear Ganol
Xhosa Yeembali KuMbindi-emhlabeni
Yiddish די געשיכטע פון מיטל-ערד
J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium
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