New Tolkien-Illustrated 'The Silmarillion' Set To Release This Year
J. R. R. Tolkien was not just a wordsmith. He was also an artist. He drew many of the maps and illustrated pictures in his novels himself such as the Gates of Moria. Most of the drawings/illustrations for Tolkien’s world of Middle Earth were actually done by him. It is only recently that they have been compiled together with his works to create illustrated versions of his books. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit already came out with illustrated editions. Recently, it was announced that The Silmarillion would follow suit with its own illustrated version coming out in October 2022.
With Amazon’s announcement of their own Lord of the Rings spin-off series, there is a resurgence of interest in Tolkien’s works and Middle Earth. While many fans are skeptical of Amazon’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, some are excited for new cinematic adventures in Middle Earth. The Rings of Power releases in September 2022.
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Showrunners J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay have said that Amazon’s The Rings of Power series will not be following events in The Silmarillion. The series will instead follow the events of the Second Age after the fall of the first Dark Lord Morgoth, Sauron’s rise to powder, and the forging of the Rings of Power. It was then announced that Amazon actually does not have the rights to The Silmarillion and therefore cannot use any of the material from there. Instead, the series is pulling from the appendices of The Lord of the Rings, which, as Payne and McKay have said before, has quite a lot of information/storylines that can be expanded upon. Even though The Silmarillion is not the focus of the upcoming Amazon series, many of its characters and stories are a potential backdrop to the series. Many of the characters featured in The Rings of Power are also in The Silmarillion, such as Galadriel and Gil-galad, two elves that will reportedly play a prominent role in The Rings of Powers.
That being said, fans should still be excited for the release of the illustrated edition of The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion has always been known as that Tolkien book, whether in a good or bad way. It contains beautiful, enchanting, sad stories, but is insanely hard to read and get through compared to The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, which can sometimes be a challenge for the average reader. Tolkien was a master of many crafts, and wordiness while world-building is definitely one of them. While The Silmarillion is rich with Middle Earth lore, it is also difficult to read because portions of it are actually scraps of stories that Tolkien’s son Christopher put together to form a cohesive book. It is heavily edited, and not quite polished yet. Despite all this, The Silmarillion is one of the most fascinating explorations into Middle Earth and the extensive lore that J.R.R. Tolkien created. Tolkien was planning on publishing The Silmarillion, but he died before officially finishing it. Interestingly enough, Tolkien was working on The Silmarillion longer than The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. He actually started writing it before even going to war in France during WWI. The Silmarillion was published posthumously in 1977.
The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Edition was released in 2021. It was so popular that the pre-sales sold out, and you could not get it for months. It featured many maps, towers, and pastoral scenes. We can expect the illustrations in The Silmarillion to be just as beautiful and unique. It promises to include “the flora of Middle-earth and heraldic devices of the great Houses of the Elves.” Any book with Tolkien’s drawings is a treasure.
When The Silmarillion was first published, it did not sell nearly as well as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. However, over time, despite it being dense and hard for many fans to get through, it has become very important in the lore of Middle Earth leading to more popular stories later in the world’s timeline. It talks about the origin of the elves, dwarves, men, Sauron, etc. It also introduces us to the origin stories of some of our favorites: Gandalf, Galadriel, and Elrond to name a few. The Silmarillion also tells the story of Beren and Lúthien, widely acknowledged to be one of the most popular love stories of all time for fantasy and Lord of the Rings fans.
One can certainly read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings without ever reading The Silmarillion. However, if you are a huge fan of Tolkien or you really want to understand the background of what is going on in The Rings of Power, The Silmarillion is a good place to start. It does take place over hundreds of years, but it is hundreds of years of interesting, fun, sad, and intense adventures.
The Silmarillion Illustrated Edition is currently available for pre-order and is sure to be a fan favorite. Tolkien’s drawings always add a certain beauty to his already rich texts. Putting the two together is sure to be a hit.
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Source(s): Gizmodo