Impossible to describe in a few words, JRR Tolkien?s great work of imaginative fiction has been labelled both a heroic romance and a classic fantasy fiction. By turns comic and homely, epic and diabolic, the narrative moves through countless changes of scene and character in an imaginary world which is totally convincing in its detail. Tolkien created a vast new mythology in an invented world which has proved timeless in its appeal.

J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a ?dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told?. And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalising glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Baradd�r and the rise of Sauron. It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion...