Unfinished Tales

Unfinished Tales, as the name implies, is a collection of tales by JRR Tolkien, collated and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. Also as the name implies, some of these tales are unfinished.

It is required reading for book Tolkien fans, being (probably) the next book most people would read after the Silmarillion, but before embarking on the 12-volume History of Middle Earth.

UT, as it is usually abbreviated, belongs with the Silm and HoME as being part of Tolkien's "expanded universe" - unlike Lord of the Rings, there isn't always one definitive version of canon (e.g. the parentage of Gil-Galad, or whether there's one Glorfindel or two, and so on).

Structurally, UT consists of several tales from each of the First, Second and Third Ages of Middle-earth, some of which are expansions on the published stories in the Silm or LoTR (e.g. the Tale of the Children of Hurin), and some of which lie within other parts of the history of Arda (e.g. Aldarion and Erendis, the only completed story from Numenor before its fall). The last section of UT contains some essays on subjects of interest - on the Istari, palantiri and so on.