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Often, while browsing the Internet, I come across something in reference to Lord of the Rings and on googling it, it's something that I don't know about. I've seen the movies and am currently reading The Hobbit.

I was wondering about are there any other publication out there written or otherwise? If yes, could you be please be so kind as to help me with the chronological order of them.

The ones that I'm aware of are The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy books (and the movies of course).

EDIT:

Yes, the answers here cover a lot about the query. But it seems like the content of the mentioned publication is mostly about Middle Earth. I was hoping to know not just about the publications related to The Lord Of the Rings, rathar more about the history of other landmasses and other peoples. For Example: today I came across Yearsof the lamps, Years of the Trees. Having not read all the known (to me) publications I wasnt sure whether how much of these and other things, that I'm not aware of, are covered.

Thanks to DevSolar, for mentioning Unfinished Tales of Middle-Earth. Not sure if these publication are the all that cover the full extent of the matter.

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John Shepard
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  • Unfinished Tales of Middle-Earth. – DevSolar Jan 08 '16 at 11:54
  • @Mithoron not necessarily, since "published material" can include letters from Tolkien, for instance. – SQB Jan 08 '16 at 12:08
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    @JohnShepard There's some confusion because "Middle-Earth" is used in two different meanings. The narrower sense is just the continent, not including the Undying Lands or Númenor, but in the more general sense, it includes the whole planet and fictional world franchise. Some stories in The Silmarillion talk about events outside the continent: the kin-slaughter of the Noldor starts from the Undying lands, followed by a long journey to the Middle-Earth continent. – b_jonas Jan 08 '16 at 12:58
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    (To make things worse, The Silmarillion also has a double meaning, because it means both the whole posthumous volume published in 1977, and its longest middle section.) – b_jonas Jan 08 '16 at 12:58
  • Well, no one told me that!!! :P @b_jonas I see what you mean. I was under the impression that the term "Middle Earth" refers to the particular landmass. Hoping someone could help out here (finger crossed). – John Shepard Jan 08 '16 at 13:11

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There is a group of books known as The History of Middle-Earth which deal with early and later versions of the published material (LotR). Try Unfinished Tales and Morgoth's Ring for instance. A lot of these things do not always agree with the published works. The Book of Lost Tales is like a super early version of the Silmarillion, Morgoth's Ring as well. There are some writings in the latter about the possible origin of Orcs, somatic things about Elves, the relationship between Melkor and Sauron, etc. There is a description of the island of Numenor in Unfinished Tales, the rulers of Numenor, Isildur's death, the Ringwraith's search for the Ring, who the Istari/wizards were, various histories of Galadriel, and the Palantir for instance.

Try delving into the appendix to the Lord of the Rings for other interesting things, and also the People's of Middle Earth which is part of the Histories series. Tolkien also talks about his work in some of his letters so you might want to get The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.

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