Shelfology Book Pairing

by J. R. R. Tolkien

"The great tale of The children of Húrin, set during the legendary time before the Lord of the Rings. Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwells in the vast fortress of Angband in the North; and within the shadow of the fear of Angband, and the war waged by Morgoth against the Elves, the fates of Túrin and his sister Nienor will be tragically entwined. Their brief and passionate lives are dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bears them as the children of Húrin, the man who dared to defy him to his face. Against them Morgoth sends his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire, in an attempt to fulfil the curse of Morgoth and destroy the children of Húrin."--Cover verso.

by J. Tolkien

I will begin this book by returning to the quotation that I used to open Beren and Lúthien: a letter written by my father in 1964, in which he said that out of my head he wrote The Fall of Gondolin during sick-leave from the army in 1917, and the original version of Beren and Lúthien in the same year.