THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH. The Book of Lost Tales; The Lays of Beleriand; The Shaping of Middle-Earth; The Return of the Shadow; The Treason of Isaengard; The War of the Ring; Sauron Defeated; The Lost Road and Other Writings; Morgoth's Ring; The War of the Jewels; The Peoples of Middle-Earth; The History of Middle earth - Index; The letters of J. R. R. Tolkien by TOLKIEN. J. R. R. -- Edited by Christopher Tolkien - 1983

George Allen & Unwin; Unwin Hyman; Harper Collins. London. 1983 - 1996. MIXED EDITIONS. 8vo. 14 volumes. A complete 12 volume set, plus the index volume and letters of Tolkien. Original publishers boards in different colours but all with uniform gilt lettering to the spines. In the original multi colour dustwrappers. Volume 11 and Letters are both first edition, 1st printings, the other 12 all reprint editions. Volumes 6 and 12 with some staining to the closed page edges, but not affecting the text at all. One closed tear to the top hinge corner of the dustwrapper of volume six, without loss and much less noticeable now that the wrapper in a clear film protector. Previous owner name has been inked and whited out in the Letters. Overall a very good set of this publication of Tolkien's entire History of Middle Earth, in which tales, songs, poems, maps, illustrations, genealogical tables, and even linguistic primers for Tolkien's languages, give the fullest picture available of one of the most thoroughly imagined worlds ever created in the history of fantasy literature. The enormous content presented in these twelve volumes was only hinted at in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and was drastically condensed into a single volume in the Silmarillion which was published in 1977.