The Silmarillion
- 431
- Pages
- about 8 h
- Reading time
- Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
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Our view
“The Silmarillion” is not a novel but a body of myths and tales in shifting styles: the deep history behind the world of “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”. Some readers find its flood of names and events far denser than in those books and need more than one pass to hold it all. Best saved for those who already know Middle-earth well and want to see where its legends begin.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Silmarillion is a book consisting of a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited, partly written, and published posthumously by his son Christopher in 1977, assisted by Guy Gavriel Kay, who became a fantasy author. It tells of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed Realm of Valinor, the ill-fated region of Beleriand, the island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—are set. After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher, Stanley Unwin, requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the writings that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.0 across 1,294 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 8.0 — the Fantasy average of 8.0 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 119 | 9% |
| Google Books | 9.0 | 14 | 1% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 1.2K | 90% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Silmarillion?
It has 431 pages — shorter than 69% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 8.0, the closest to this book.
