Most people know The Lord of the Rings as the definitive magnum opus of J.R.R. Tolkien, but if you were to ask the author himself, he’d probably spit a few verses from the Ainulindalë, the song of Arda, around which the entire fictional universe formed in The Silmarillion. Well, maybe he wouldn’t go so far as to do that, but you get the idea.
Indeed, The Silmarillion serves as the mythological backdrop of Middle-earth, where The Lord of the Rings takes place. It also details the stories of the First and Second Ages in earnest, which has served as a source for Prime Video’s upcoming television series, The Rings of Power.
Now, more than four decades after its original release, The Silmarillion is getting a special edition this October, one that incorporates colored illustrations of Arda from Tolkien himself, along with a personal letter that the British linguist wrote way back in 1951 before The Lord of the Rings came out.
You can preorder this new edition from Amazon for a meager $50 now, with the book releasing on Oct. 27. Check out the beautiful cover below, embroidered by Tolkien’s fictional Elvish language Sindarin and bearing the author’s signature in the middle. (Image credit: HarperCollins Publishers LLC.)
After Amazon’s new adaptation stirred the Middle-earth hype maelstrom, Tolkienists announced plans to release long-lost scripts that the author worked on for a radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings back in the day. Now, with the show premiering in September and a new edition of The Silmarillion coming out on a later date, 2022 is turning out to be a great year for Tolkien fans.