Editor | Christopher Tolkien |
---|---|
Author | J. R. R. Tolkien |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Genre |
High fantasy Literary analysis |
Publisher | George Allen & Unwin (UK) |
Publication date
|
1993 |
Media type | Print (hardback and paperback) |
Pages | 496 (paperback) |
ISBN | |
Preceded by | Sauron Defeated |
Followed by | The War of the Jewels |
Morgoth's Ring (1993) is the tenth volume of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth in which he analyses the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. This volume, along with the subsequent The War of the Jewels, provides detailed writings and editorial commentary pertaining to J. R. R. Tolkien's cosmology that eventually would become The Silmarillion. This book mentions a few characters excluded elsewhere, including Findis and Irimë, the daughters of Finwë.
The title of this volume comes from a statement from one of the essays: "Just as Sauron concentrated his power in the One Ring, Morgoth dispersed his power into the very matter of Arda, thus 'the whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's Ring'".
Morgoth's Ring presents source material and editorial on the following:
The Annals of Aman date to the period following the completion of The Lord of the Rings. There are three extant versions of the text, including a carefully emended manuscript, a typescript and its carbon copy each featuring different corrections and notes, and a typescript of the earlier sections of the text that deviates from the previous typescript. Christopher Tolkien surmises that the first typescript was composed in 1958.
A reworking of the earlier Annals of Valinor (which was the working title of the manuscript until Tolkien changed it) and connected closely with the narrative of the incomplete 1937 Quenta Silmarillion, The Annals of Aman moves from a compressed narrative style to a fuller accounting of the events of the chronology.