The volume is slim at 176 pages, but the depth and breadth of thought encompassed in these essays makes it well worth owning. Allan Turner's well-balanced and thoughtful collection of essays chosen to commemorate the thirty-year publication anniversary of The Silmarillion is a welcome addition to Tolkien scholarship. And I still find myself returning to it for study, because there are passages and precise turns of phrase that occur nowhere else in the vast archive of material published by Tolkien's son Christopher.Īs The Silmarillion: Thirty Years On ably demonstrates, there is still much to be gleaned from that early presentation of Middle-earth mythology and legend. Although I've read The Lord of the Rings many times, I've always preferred The Silmarillion, embracing it first as a work of art and only later as a resource to be mined for knowledge of Tolkien's legendarium. With the multi-volume History of Middle-earth now behind us, shall we consider The Silmarillion simply as a piece of literature in the Tolkien canon or can we still continue to use it as resource for study? Both, I think. Has it really been more than three decades since The Silmarillion landed in bookstores to the bewilderment of some and the delight of others? A lot of water has flowed under the bridge to Nargothrond since then, giving us new perspective on Christopher Tolkien's first attempt to publish a portion of his father's sprawling legacy.
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