Unfinished Tales
- 512
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- Mythopoeic Awards
- Mythopoeic Fantasy Award
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Our view
“Unfinished Tales” shows how far down the world behind “The Lord of the Rings” goes. These are stories and essays Tolkien never completed, which his son Christopher edited; they add peoples, languages and history to Middle-earth, and several return to matters told differently in “The Silmarillion”. The texts break off, and some readers note that the book leans on a thorough knowledge of his other work.
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
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth is a collection of stories and essays by J. R. R. Tolkien that were never completed during his lifetime, but were edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980. Many of the tales within are retold in The Silmarillion, albeit in modified forms; the work also contains a summary of the events of The Lord of the Rings told from a less personal perspective.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 176 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 54% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.9 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.0 | 20 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 7.9 | 156 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is Unfinished Tales?
It has 512 pages — shorter than 57% 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 7.9, the closest to this book.
