Where can I legally buy a copy of Histories of Middle Earth?

[lunixer]

Of course I mean ebook. I am looking for a legally purchasable copy of Histories of Middle Earth by Tolkien, kindle-compatible. Does anyone know where I can get this?

[desertgrandma]

At Fantastic Fiction, these are listed under "history of middle earth". Are they what you are talking about?

J.R.R. Tolkien

History of Middle-Earth
1. The Book of Lost Tales (1983)
2. The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (1984)
3. The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
4. The Shaping of Middle-Earth (1987)
5. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
The Book of Lost TalesThe Book of Lost Tales, Part TwoThe Lays of BeleriandThe Shaping of Middle-Earth
The Lost Road and Other Writings

[Falcao]

I think he is asking about ebooks.

[Krystian Galaj]

Yup, "kindle-compatible".

[lunixer]

Yeah. I can't find the ebooks anywhere.

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by Falcao

I think he is asking about ebooks.

Originally Posted by Krystian Galaj

Yup, "kindle-compatible".

Yes, see I figured that.....I was just looking for more than "History of Middle Earth" as a search title.

[HarryT]

"The History of Middle Earth" is the name given to the set of 3 hardbacks or 12 paperbacks which Christopher Tolkien published to chart the progress and development of his father's writing. I have them in hardback - it's a fascinating read for the Tolkien fan.

Not available as a legal eBook, but well worth buying as paper books.

The 12 books are:

1. The Book of Lost Tales 1 (1983)
2. The Book of Lost Tales 2 (1984)
3. The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
4. The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)
5. The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
6. The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.1) (1988)
7. The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.2) (1989)
8. The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings v.3) (1990)
9. Sauron Defeated (includes The History of The Lord of the Rings v.4) (1992)
10. Morgoth's Ring (The Later Silmarillion v.1) (1993)
11. The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion v.2) (1994)
12. The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)

The first five books track the early history of The Silmarillion and related texts. Books six to nine discuss the development of The Lord of the Rings; book nine also discusses the Númenor story in the form of The Notion Club Papers. Books ten and eleven return to The Silmarillion material, including the Annals of Beleriand and Annals of Aman. Book twelve discusses the development of the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings and assorted writings from the last years of Tolkien's life.

The hardback volumes contain books 1-4, 5-8, and 9-12 respectively.

[colinsky]

Actually, it was suggested that they were coming out "soon". Perhaps it is worth following up with HarperCollins on the schedule?

J R R Tolkien will move into the digital age as HarperCollins begins selling his Lord of the Rings series as enhanced e-books.

...

HarperCollins will follow the digital publication of these titles with The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún (£18.99), The Silmarillion (£7.99) and Unfinished Tales (£7.99) on 5th May. These e-book releases are timed to coincide with the hardback of the previously unpublished The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún.

Further titles in Tolkien's back catalogue will follow later this year with the publisher aiming to release The History of Middle Earth, Tales from the Perilous Realm and Letters from Father Christmas first.

http://www.thebookseller.com/news/83...-digital-.html

[HarryT]

That article, however, is from April 2009!

[colinsky]

Well, they very likely underestimated the # of footnotes they would need to link!

[HarryT]

LOL . I'm not sure, though, that "The History of Middle Earth" is particularly suited to be an eBook (or a series of eBooks, rather). It's the sort of book that you dip into, rather than reading from cover to cover. I certainly don't plan to get rid of my hardbacks of it.

[narflet]

Sorry for digging up this old thread, but it came up in a google search while I was trying to find info about publishing dates for the HoME books.

The first two are now available. I haven't read through them, or checked every page, but they seem to be well formatted and they link to all the footnotes properly.

Book of Lost Tales 1: http://amzn.to/iSTBF5
Book of Lost Tales 2: http://amzn.to/k2IdH6

The other other info I could find about them was from this interview about the 2010 publications: http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/press/...lkien_2010.php

2010 will see more of Tolkien's books available as e-books, most significantly The History of Middle-earth

So I can only assume that means that the rest will eventually be coming, but slowly. Amazon doesn't have any listed as future publications, so who knows when we'll see them.

[carpetmojo]

Well JRT didn't exactly rush about with the original canon, did he !

[crich70]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Well JRT didn't exactly rush about with the original canon, did he !

Nope. He started what became the mythos of Middle Earth back round the time of WWI and worked on it his whole life. At his death it was still not quite finished. His son Christopher has spent literally years sorting through the accumulated texts to bring out things like The Silmarillion in a publishable form. I've got some of the lost tales books in pbook format along with some others like the letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Father Christmas letters.

[narflet]

Looks like the rest will be available before the year is out. Most are listed in the kindle store now, with publication dates of either 30th Sept or 31st Oct. Link.