The Silmarillion Deluxe Edition

„The Silmarillion“ tells the gods and hero sagas of Middle-earth from the creation of the world to the beginning of the Third Age, in which the Hobbits live.

„The Silmarillion“ recounts the events of the First Age – that distant epoch of Middle-earth, to which the heroes of „The Lord of the Rings“ always look back with awe. Some of them, like Elrond and Galadriel, but also Sauron, have experienced it. It is the time of the Elves, the long-lived, who love things so much that they give everything a name. Humans are just emerging from the wilds of the East.

Although the „Silmarillion“ was only published long after the author’s death by his son, it was created earlier than „The Lord of the Rings“. The stories about Middle-earth had become a tradition for Tolkien over more than fifty years, to which he finally stood more as a philologist or historian than an „inventor“. And so the hobbits and their companions in „The Lord of the Rings“ entered this already finished world, the firm ground of the legend under their feet.