Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Tolkien Reading Order??

What's this?  I've never heard of an order to read Tolkien books other than The Hobbit > Lord of the Ring: Fellowship of the Ring > LOTR: The Twin Towers > LOTR: The Return of the King.  What's this craziness all about?

I was recently told while reading Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion' that I should have read the entire LOTR trilogy first (I have only read The Hobbit before The Silmarillion).

What I found on the Tolkien Society website, was that there is really no set order.  It goes with age, preference, and they one give lists of books in the order of publishing date. (this is not the full list, but it is from the smallest list I took two of them off of the end)
  • The Hobbit
  • The Lord of the Rings
  • Tales from the Perilous Realm [mainly short stories with only nominal Middle-earth content]
  • The Silmarillion
  • Unfinished Tales
  • The History of Middle-earth series
  • The Children of Húrin
So, by this list, I went out of order, but in the second, much larger list on the website, I was even more out of order.  What I pick up from this list is that really, there is no order to read the books, except for the LOTR trilogy.  Those you read in order, but the rest of the books is mainly fair game to a point.  Having found this new list, or published dates, I now know that there is just about as many books as I thought Tolkien had written as well.

As I found other books, they really only included a small few of his stories.  Others say that it's a better idea to read stories that Tolkien wrote with no editing help from his son Christopher first, then the ones Christopher helped with afterward.

I had wanted to read the LOTR trilogy before I read the Silmarillion, but it was a matter of where the books were when I started reading.  My LOTR books were my storage unit from my recent move, and The Silmarillion was in my apartment with me, because it was with my college stuff.  So I knew I had a personal reading list.
  • The Hobbit
  • Lord of the Rings (all three)
  • The Silmarillion
  • Children of Húrin
  • (then order of which books bought first)
What's your order for reading the Tolkien books?  Did you come up with this list before, during, or after you started reading his wonderful stories?  Out of the Tolkien books you've read (if you have), which one is your favorite?  Let me know down below!

À beintôt

photo creds: monogram, books, quote

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