The Shaping of Middle-earth

The writings of J. R. R. Tolkien included in this book have been given the title The Shaping of Middle-earth because in them is seen a great advance in the chronological and geographical structure of the legends of Middle-earth and Valinor. The hitherto wholly unknown Ambar- kanta or 'Shape of the World' is the only account ever given of the nature of the imagined Universe, and it is accompanied by diagrams and maps of the world before and after the cataclysms of the War of the Gods and the Downfall of Numenor. The first map of Beleriand, in the North-west of Middle- earth, is also reproduced and discussed. In the Annals of Valinor and the Annals of Beleriand the chronology of the First Age is given shape; and with these are given the fragments of the translations into Anglo-Saxon made by Aelfwine, the Englishman who voyaged into the True West and came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where he learned the ancient history of Elves and Men. Also included are the original 'Silmarillion', written in 1926, from which all the later development proceeded, and the Quenta Noldorinwa of 1930, the only version of the myths and legends of the First Age that J.R.R. Tolkien completed to their end.

This is the fourth volume of The History of Middle-earth, edited by Christopher Tolkien, the first two comprising The Book of Lost Tales Parts I and II, and the third The Lays of Beleriand.