Description: This item is for one copy (of two avaible for sale) of a hardback book published by Houghton Mifflin in 2007. The copyright page states that this book was first published in the UK by HarperCollins in 2007. The date of these copies is 2007 at the bottom of the title page and the printing status bars are complete, so these are first American editions. Eight full page color illustrations as well as lots of partial page black and white illustrations and a fold out map in the back by the great Tolkien illustrator Alan Lee.

Synopsis: There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings, and the story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked, but that were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World. In that remote time Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband, the Hells of Iron, in the North; and the tragedy of Turin and his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves. Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Hurin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire. Into this story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the Dark Lord and the Dragon enter in direly articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Turin and Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled. The earliest versions of this story by J.R.R. Tolkien go back to the end of the First World War and the years that followed; but long afterward, when The Lord of the Rings was finished, he wrote it anew and greatly enlarged it in complexities of motive and character: it became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book I have endeavored to construct, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention." Christopher Tolkien. The first complete book by Tolkien in three decades, this book reunites fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, Eagles and Orcs. This stirring narrative will return fans to the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien.

Condition: Bindings - very good, top and bottom of spines bumped, copy 1 has slightly has a slightly bumped corner, copy 2 has a couple of small spots on the top page edges, otherwise like new. Dust jackets - near fine, minor edgewear and wrinkling, not price clipped, in dust jacket protector.

Shipping and Packing: General Information: We always ship in sturdy new boxes with premium heavy duty packing tape, bubblewrap and filler to keep the item(s) away from the sides of the box. The pictures below show the boxes that we use for shipping.