Book of Lost Tales

TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Book of Lost Tales. Part One. Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company [1984]. 8vo, [vi] 297pp. Black cloth with spine stamped in silver foil. Orange endpapers; 2 full-page b&w illustrations. Spine ends a tad rubbed, else a fine copy in original dust jacket.

First US edition, being a review copy with review slip laid in. The first volume in the epic 12-volume The History of Middle Earth that captures Tolkien’s writings on the mythology of his beloved creation. In The Book of Lost Tales are found the earliest accounts and original ideas of Gods and Elves; Dwarves and Orcs; the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; the cities of Nargothrond and Gondolin; and the geography and cosmology of the invented world.