The Peoples of Middle-Earth: The History of Middle-Earth, Vol. 12 (History of Middle-earth, 12)

Throughout this vast and intricate mythology says Publishers Weekly "one marvels anew at the depth breadth and persistence of J.R.R. Tolkiens labor. No one sympathetic to his aims the invention of a secondary universe will want to miss this chance to be present at the creation." In this capstone to that creation we find the chronology of Middle-earths later Ages the Hobbit genealogies and the Western language or Common Speech. These early essays show that Tolkiens fertile imagination was at work on Middle-earths Second and Third Ages long before he explored them in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings . Here too are valuable writings from Tolkiens last years: " The New Shadow " in Gondor of the Fourth Age and" Tal-elmar " the tale of the coming of the Nsmen-rean ships.