title: The Silmarillion, Vol. 1
author:  J.R.R. Tolkien 
description: Grade 5-8-The epic history of the elves, and the creation story of Tolkien's magical world.<br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
zlib_text: The Silmarillion
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  > The Silmarillion
  
  > JRRT “The Silmarillion”
  
  > FOREWORD
  
  > The Silmarillion, now published four years after the death of its author, is
  > an account of the Elder Days, or the First Age of the World. In The Lord of
  > the Rings were narrated the great events at the end of the Third Age; but
  > the tales of The Silmarillion are legends deriving from a much deeper past,
  > when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-earth, and the High Elves
  > made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils.
  
  > Not only, however, does The Silmarillion relate the events of a far earlier
  > time than those of The Lord of the Rings; it is also, in all the essentials
  > of its conception, far the earlier work. Indeed, although it was not then
  > called The Silmarillion, it was already in being half a century ago; and in
  > battered notebooks extending back to 1917 can still be read the earliest
  > versions, often hastily pencilled, of the central stories of the mythology.
  > Bu