The Silmarillion

London: HarperCollinsPublishers, 1988 Edited by Christopher Tolkien. Illustrated with 18 original paintings by Ted Nasmith. Limited edition. One of 500 numbered copies signed by Christopher Tolkien and Ted Nasmith, this being number 68. Publisher's quarter leather with rust colored-cloth, front board stamped in gilt with Tolkien's monogram, spine lettered in gilt, all edges gilt, and pictorial endpapers; in its original red cloth slipcase, with Tolkein's gilt monogram to front. Fine book; fine slipcase. Overall, a practically pristine copy. In Christopher Tolkien's foreword to The Silmarillion, he writes, "In The Lord of the Rings were narrated the great (truncated) events at the end of the Third Age; but the tales of The Silmarillion are legends deriving from a much deeper past, when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils." The sprawling and complex work is divided into five sections: "Ainulindalë," "Valaquenta," "Quenta Silmarillion," "Akallabêth," and "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age." When J. R. R. Tolkien passed away in 1973, his son Christopher took on the unenviable task of collecting and organizing his writings, in various states of progress, related to the history and mythology of the world of Arda, which he had begun developing all the way back in 1917. Christopher completed the editing of The Silmarillion with the assistance of Canadian fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay, and it was first published in 1977.. Inscribed by Illustrator. Limited. Quarter Leather. Fine. Illus. by Nasmith, Ted. (Inventory #: JRRT022)