Information technology'southward difficult to imagine a globe without The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien's sprawling magnum opus popularized the fantasy genre, galvanized a counterculture movement, and snowballed into a global popular culture phenomenon. Peter Jackson'southward early aughts film adaptations have merely compounded the serial' enduring popularity, inviting new fans into Tolkien's fantastical world past way of Academy Awards, timeless memes, and phenomenal filmmaking.
If you haven't read the series, how I envy you lot! Newcomers are in for an unforgettable reading feel; you'll always call up the outset fourth dimension yous encountered these moving, masterfully imagined epics about the struggle between good and evil, the delicate balance of decease and immortality, and the addictive danger of power. Only The Lord of the Rings is just the tip of the iceberg; Tolkien'due south Middle-earth legendarium encompasses thousands of years and dozens of other works, significant that if you dive in, it may be quite a long time before y'all make information technology at that place and back again.
What's the best path for reading your way through, you ask? It'due south a simple question, but 1 bound to rile upwards Tolkien fans, who beloved and study the author'south works with serious devotion. I know because I'm one of them. Aye, dear reader, you caught me—I've been a Tolkienite since historic period eight, when I got my hands on The Hobbit and it inverse my little brain forever. I grew up in Tolkien's wide, wide earth in the manner that other members of my generation grew up in Narnia or Hogwarts; these books are an enduring role of my eye and identity, and they can be for you, too. Beneath, I've charted a choose your own risk class through the lore, with exit points for the casual reader and bonus material for the newly converted Tolkienite. Which i will yous be? Time to offset reading and observe out. (And once you've finished, cheque out our maps to Dune and The Wheel of Fourth dimension next.)
oneThe Hobbit
"In a hole in the basis there lived a hobbit." With this immortal line, the journey through Middle-world begins. Nosotros recommend starting your adventure with The Hobbit, Tolkien'due south first published foray into Middle-earth, earlier moving onto The Lord of the Rings proper. The Hobbit is a rollicking skillful read, and a superb place to go your feet wet. This is the tale of Bilbo Baggins, a respectable, homebody hobbit (a race of short, hirsuite-footed people who live in underground homes). When an itinerant wizard and a visitor of dwarves come up knocking, Bilbo is swept into their expedition to the Lonely Mountain, where the dwarves intend to recapture their people's vast treasure from the unsafe dragon Smaug. The treacherous journey awakens Bilbo's thirst for chance, places him in a host of thrillingly sticky situations, and sends him packing with a mysterious magical ring…
2The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings begins in earnest with The Fellowship of the Ring. When Bilbo Baggins suddenly disappears from his 111th birthday political party, his beloved ring falls into the hands of his young heir, Frodo Baggins. The wizard Gandalf confirms that this is the One Ring, lost by the Dark Lord Sauron long ago, and urges Frodo to spirit it to the elven stronghold of Rivendell. In Rivendell, the Fellowship of the Band assembles: nine walkers of dissimilar races, banded together on a quest to destroy the 1 Ring in the fires of Mordor, thus saving the world from an ancient, cosmic evil. The perilous journey across mountains, forests, and rivers tests them, endangers them, and ultimately divides them.
threeThe Two Towers
The saga continues in The 2 Towers, which sees the members of the Fellowship scattered to the winds. Following their capture by bloodthirsty orcs, Merry and Pippin disappear into foreboding Fangorn Forest, where they take up with sentient trees; meanwhile, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli reconnect with a inverse Gandalf, and then come up to the aid of Rohan's struggling people. Frodo and Sam, en route to Mordor, form an uneasy alliance with the wretched creature Gollum, who guides them to their destination while plotting to steal the ring. Every bit this installment ends, the shadow of Sauron grows beyond the lands, while armies everywhere steel themselves for a climactic battle.
4The Render of the King
The trilogy concludes thrillingly with The Return of the Male monarch. The forces of Gondor and Rohan square off against Sauron's ground forces in the epic Boxing of Pelennor Fields, while Frodo falls dangerously nether the sway of the ring'south dark magic during the chancy journey through Mordor. It all comes down to the nail-biting Battle of the Morannon, when Aragorn and his forces stage a terminal stand at the Black Gate of Mordor, and Frodo makes a seismic sacrifice to destroy the ring once and for all. Ultimately, Aragorn steps into his destiny as Male monarch of Gondor and peace reigns, but readers coming to the series from the films will be disarmed by the hobbits' homecoming. However in thrall to the evil Saruman, the Shire needs a champion, forcing the hobbits to mount a rebellion in the fateful Scouring of the Shire. Frodo, beleaguered by the physical and psychological toll of the ring, passes into the Undying Lands to observe peace, and harmony settles over Middle-world.
5The Silmarillion
As epic equally The Lord of the Rings may experience, the serial spans only a fraction of Middle-earth's history. In The Silmarillion, his mythopoetic masterpiece, Tolkien takes united states of america back to the dawn of time, unspooling legends like the cosmos of the universe, the awakening of the elves, and the rising of Middle-earth'south greatest villains. For fans of the Peter Jackson films, a shred of this material volition seem familiar, as Galadriel's Fellowship of the Band prologue recounts some of these stories (like the forging of the Rings of Ability). Dumbo with lore and lusciously imagined, The Silmarillion isn't for the faint of eye, but it rewards devoted study, shading in the millennia of history behind the core legendarium of Middle-earth. If you lot want to become up to speed earlier Amazon's Lord of the Rings evidence debuts in September 2022, read The Silmarillion kickoff, every bit the testify is expected to dramatize parts of the book.
6Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Center-earth
Here's where the safety meets the road. If you're confident you've been brought upward to speed on Heart-earth by now, experience free to exit through the gift shop. If you lot're hooked on Tolkien and eager to keep exploring, come sit past me. Unfinished Tales consists of stories and essays Tolkien failed to complete in his lifetime, stitched together in a more than coherent course by Christopher Tolkien, the author'due south son and literary executor. Some of these stories recount events from The Silmarillion, while others aggrandize our knowledge of Heart-earth with additional context, similar a deep dive into the origins of wizards or a more detailed narrative of how Isildur lost the One Ring. Unfinished Tales will likely bear witness to be another valuable resource for students of Amazon'south Lord of the Rings testify, as "A Clarification of the Island of Númenor" will come in handy when the show sets upward shop in that fateful location.
7The Children of Húrin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
The start of three standalone "keen tales" set in Centre-globe'due south Offset Age, The Children of Húrin is—you guessed it—another unfinished manuscript salvaged by Christopher Tolkien. Long earlier the One Ring was forged, a great warrior named Húrin dared to defy Morgoth, the Friction match-esque fallen god who terrorized Middle Earth in its early millennia (and later trained a fearsome lieutenant in Sauron). As penalisation for his disobedience, Húrin was immobilized on a mountaintop, where he paid the ultimate price: day in and day out, Morgoth forced him to watch the evils visited upon his children, culminating in their death and disappearance, as well as some downright Oedipal tragedy. The Children of Húrin is heavy, by Tolkien'southward standards, merely like other auxiliary tales, it rounds out The Silmarillion with lush additional particular.
viiiBeren and Lúthien
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Tolkien, y'all ol' softie. The 2nd of the great tales is the tragic romance of Beren, a mortal human being, and Lúthien, an immortal elf maiden. In order to win Lúthien's hand in marriage from her disapproving father, Beren set to the awe-inspiring task of robbing Morgoth of a Silmaril (three prized jewels of the elves, containing divine calorie-free). Together the couple achieved the task, just Beren died immediately afterwards, inspiring such grief in Lúthien that she likewise laid down and died. In the halls of the gods, Lúthien shared an elegiac song with the god of death. Moved by her lamentation, he restored the couple to life, on the status that they would both die a mortal expiry. This romantic fable is a foundational myth of The Silmarillion, as well as a deliberate mirroring of the romance between Aragorn and Arwen—herself a descendent of Lúthien, who, similar her ancestor, would marry a mortal man, choosing "both the sweet and the bitter." If you lot read only one of the peachy tales, make information technology this one.
nineThe Fall of Gondolin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
In the third and terminal volume of the neat tales, Tolkien sets his sights on Gondolin, a hugger-mugger elven utopia betrayed and destroyed during the First Age. When Gondolin's location was betrayed to Morgoth, the vengeful god sent an army of orcs, balrogs, and dragons to siege the metropolis. Gondolin'due south ballsy fall calls to mind the sack of Troy, and makes for riveting reading. Survivors of the disaster would become ancestors of both Elrond and Aragorn. The Fall of Gondolin isn't required reading, but for Tolkien fans who particularly dearest his elvish lore, it's a slam dunk.
10The History of Middle-world
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Later on Unfinished Tales was published to slap-up disquisitional and commercial involvement, Christopher Tolkien kept exploring his father'south annal. He anthologized his findings into The History of Middle-world, a downright massive twelve-book serial containing Tolkien's vast droves of auxiliary lore, from stories to poems to song cycles. Some of these volumes aggrandize The Lord of the Rings, while others expand The Silmarillion. None are earth-shattering, simply for the Tolkien completionist, they're a welcome journey back into Middle-earth, and an opportunity to consider familiar events from a fresh perspective.
11Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth
Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
If you've made it this far and you still tin can't get plenty Tolkien, add together Tolkien: Maker of Middle-world to your coffee table rotation. This hefty tome explores the visual dimensions of Tolkien's oeuvre: illustrations, maps, letters, and manuscripts, all of it paired with essays tracing the mythological influences behind Tolkien's monumental artistic endeavors. It's an splendid supplement to the books you know and honey, every bit well as a sumptuous collector'southward detail whatever Tolkien fan would cherish.
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