
Unfinished Tales
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Narrated by:
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Timothy West
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Samuel West
About this listen
Unfinished Tales is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and provides those who have read The Lord of the Rings with a whole collection of background and new stories from the twentieth century’s most acclaimed popular author.
The book concentrates on the realm of Middle-earth and comprises such elements as Gandalf’s lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End, the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand, and an exact description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan.
Unfinished Tales also contains the only story about the long ages of Numenor before its downfall, and all that is known about such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri and the legend of Amroth. The tales were collated and edited by JRR Tolkien’s son and literary heir, Christopher Tolkien, who provides a short commentary on each story, helping the reader to fill in the gaps and put each story into the context of the rest of his father’s writings.
©1980 The Tolkien Estate Limited and C.R. Tolkien (P)1980 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Another monument to the incredible imagination of Tolkien." (Sunday Telegraph)
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Featured Article: Aragorn—A Lord of the Rings Character Guide
Perhaps one of the most mysterious and intriguing characters in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Aragorn is known by many names: Strider, Elessar, Estel, and finally Aragorn II, heir to the throne of Gondor and Arnor. From a shadowy tracker who mysteriously comes to Frodo's aid to an essential member of the Fellowship of the Ring to the long-awaited king who restores harmony and peace to Middle-earth, Aragorn plays many important roles in the fantasy epic.

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Story
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil is a collection of poetry written by J. R. R. Tolkien and was first published in 1962. The audio is read by Sir Derek Jacobi and is a collection of 16 poems that contain an assortment of bestiary verse and fairy tale rhyme. It is a stunning recording that captures all the characters in their own charming and mysterious ways.
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Almost disappointing
- By Christopher on 11-19-19
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Christopher Tolkien
- Length: 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son was originally published in the 1953 edition of Essays and Studies. In December of that year, J.R.R. Tolkien took possession of a reel-to-reel tape recorder and, some time during the first few months of 1954, decided to record ‘the whole thing on tape’ as a way of ‘testing’ the performative quality of the dramatic dialogue between Tídwald and Torhthelm.
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Short sweet and to the point
- By Anthony Baker on 04-04-23
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Silmarillion
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Martin Shaw
- Length: 14 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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The complete unabridged audiobook of J.R.R Tolkien's The Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part.
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Finally!
- By Brian on 11-22-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Terry Jones
- Length: 4 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of three medieval English poems, translated by Tolkien for the modern-day reader and containing romance, tragedy, love, sex and honour.
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An absolute delight!
- By Shannon Slee on 07-15-18
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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Roverandom
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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While on holiday in 1925, four-year-old Michael Tolkien lost his beloved toy dog on the beach at Filey in Yorkshire. To console him, his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, improvised a story about Rover, a real dog who is magically transformed into a toy and is forced to seek out the wizard who wronged him in order to be returned to normal. This charming tale, peopled by a sand-sorcerer and a terrible dragon, by the king of the sea and the Man-in-the-Moon, went through several drafts over the years.
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An Entertaining Canine Fairy Tale
- By Jefferson on 09-05-10
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
- A Full-Cast BBC Radio Dramatisation
- By: Richard O'Callaghan, J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Peter Woodthorpe, Robert Stephens, Michael Hordern, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 35 mins
- Original Recording
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Part One, The Fellowship of the Ring, introduces us to Frodo Baggins. With his uncle Bilbo having mysteriously disappeared, Frodo finds himself in possession of a simple gold ring that has great and evil power. It is the Ruling Ring, taken long ago from the Dark Lord, Sauron, who now seeks to possess it again. Frodo must do everything he can to prevent this, and with the help of Gandalf the wizard and a band of loyal companions he begins a perilous journey across Middle-earth.
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Great dramatization, but read the book first!
- By Lene on 10-06-13
By: Richard O'Callaghan, and others
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The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien
- Revised and Expanded edition
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien, Humphrey Carpenter - editor, Christopher Tolkien - editor
- Narrated by: Samuel West, Mike Grady, Chris Smith
- Length: 29 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The comprehensive collection of letters spanning the adult life of one of the world’s greatest storytellers, now revised and expanded to include more than 150 previously unseen letters, with revealing new insights into The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion.
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For Tolkien fans who can't get enough (Like me)!
- By Ross on 02-29-24
By: J. R. R. Tolkien, and others
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Smith of Wootton Major
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 1 hr and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Tolkien's acclaimed modern classic 'fairie' tale, read by Derek Jacobi. Smith of Wootton Major journeys to the Land of Faery thanks to the magical ingredients of the Great Cake of the Feast of Good Children.
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Charming
- By Babbi on 01-18-17
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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A Rare Recording of J. R. R. Tolkien
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Length: 42 mins
- Original Recording
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J. R. R. Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor best known as the author of fantasy works like "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings." Listen as Tolkien reads "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil," "The Hoard," "Perry-The-Winkle," and "The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon." Also included is a reading of "A Elbereth Gilthoniel" in Elvish and "The Road Goes Ever on," sung by William Elvin with music by Donald Swann.
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Not all Tolkien - wish I'd noticed that
- By Tracet on 04-21-15
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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Farmer Giles of Ham
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Farmer Giles of Ham did not look like a hero. He was fat and red-bearded and enjoyed a slow, comfortable life. Then one day a rather deaf and short-sighted giant blundered on to his land. More by luck than skill, Farmer Giles managed to scare him away. The people of the village cheered: Farmer Giles was a hero. His reputation spread far and wide across the kingdom. So it was natural that when the dragon Chrysophylax visited the area it was Farmer Giles who was expected to do battle with it!
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Farmer to King
- By James on 06-30-14
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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Leaf by Niggle
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi
- Length: 49 mins
- Unabridged
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'Leaf by Niggle' recounts the strange adventures of the painter Niggle, who sets out to paint the perfect tree. But he senses that he will be snatched away from his work long before it is finished - if indeed it could ever be finished in this world. For it is in another and brighter place that Niggle finds his tree is finished and learns that it is indeed a real tree, a true part of creation.
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My Favourite Tolkien
- By M. J. Palmer on 05-16-17
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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The Two Towers (Dramatized)
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: An Ensemble Cast
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Original Recording
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The Fellowship is broken; the quest to destroy the Ring seems already shrouded in disaster. But as the evil lord Sauron readies his armies for war, Frodo and Sam continue their lonely journey toward Mordor, guided only by Gollum, a deceitful and tortured creature, helplessly in thrall to the Ring's dark power.
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An excellent rendition!
- By R. Compton on 08-25-13
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
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Mr Bliss
- By: J. R. R. Tolkien
- Narrated by: Sir Derek Jacobi
- Length: 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Mr Bliss, a man notable for his immensely tall hats and for the girabbit in his garden, takes the whimsical decision to buy a motor car. But his first drive to visit friends quickly becomes a catalogue of disasters. Some of these could be blamed on Mr Bliss’s style of driving, but even he could not anticipate being hijacked by three bears.
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Bonkers in the best way
- By Corinna Haller on 08-28-21
By: J. R. R. Tolkien
What listeners say about Unfinished Tales
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-02-21
PLEASE DO THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH!!!
Timothy and Samuel West give outstanding performances with this reading. The roles they take in presenting the narrative and the editor's notes make it very easy to follow.
I deeply hope they consider repeating what they have done here with "The History of Middle Earth" volumes. None of these books have an existing audiobook on the market and I believe the Wests would do justice to the text.
I've heard it suggested on the Texas Tolkien Podcast that making a review such as this might garner a demand for having these texts done in audiobook format, so I'm simply here to lend my voice and say that there is definitely an audience for such a project. So please to whomever it may concern, take heed and consider bringing the rest of Tolkien's works to this format.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-11-22
Voices brought clarity
Alternating voices portraying Christopher and JRR were pleasant and made a clear delineation between the manuscript and it's background.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Kelly Y
- 12-18-21
More Tolkien Genius
A must read or listen for anyone who has already read The Hobbit, LOTR, and the Silmarillion. After going through The Children of Hurin, and The Fall of Gondolin, I’ve grown accustomed to the 2 narrator approach. However, my one critique would be that in this particular book, Christopher Tolkiens narrative interrupts the story too much to the point of being annoying quite often. Perhaps the raspy voice of Timothy West is also too much of a contrast to the smooth sound of Samuel West. I found myself wishing that Timothy Wests parts (Christopher Tolkien) would either wait till the end of a story line or just be read by Samuel. Overall though thoroughly interesting and enjoyable.
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- Nathan Angstadt
- 07-06-23
Just Amazing
I started reading it a few years ago and forgot about it, when I got this the story became much more enjoyable and easy to take in (obviously). Having two narrators was a great touch.
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- Jes_074
- 08-11-23
Lots of good information
There was lots of good information here that if incorporated in the cannon books would’ve changed them dramatically. Even though I only watched one episode of the Amazon show based on Tolkiens books I can see where they came up with some of the ideas. These stories help enchanted the Tolkien Universe.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-02-24
Excellent Format
Of course the content is great, but I also really, really appreciate the formatting. Having two voices to provide the "core" and "footnote" text in clearly different voices was a really great idea.
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- Jessica
- 08-31-21
What stories!
Christopher Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor, has spent years compiling the history of Middle Earth from his father’s pages and pages of manuscripts. With academic precision, Christopher has assembled the stories in this book that complement the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion. And Samuel West as the stories’ narrator is superb, as sensitive a reader as Tolkien pater was a story teller. The producer, to amuse us, has Samuel’s father Timothy reading Christopher’s editorial notes, making this audio production a double father/son affair.
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10 people found this helpful
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- Alex
- 08-27-22
MINDBLOWN!
Huge fan of Tolkien and all his works, I have read the silmarillion and the four main books countless times and thought I knew a lot about middle earth…boy was I wrong! The style is hard to get used to due to the nature of the good professor, but bear through it and you will see all of middle earth fleshed out in all of its color, depth and glory. Great narration, was very easy to distinguish the main narrative from the amendments by Christopher. Highly highly recommend! They didn’t have the option for 10 stars!
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- Christopher
- 11-11-22
Some of Tolkien’s best writing, and a superb audio version
To fully appreciate the material presented in this book, you should probably be familiar not just with The Lord of the Rings but also with The Silmarillion. It should also be noted that the two extensive (but incomplete) narratives that make up Part I of this book have since been incorporated into the book-length presentations of The Fall of Gondolin and The Children of Hurin — re-edited to some degree and combined with other sources bearing on those two “great tales of Middle-Earth”.
This is some of Tolkien’s very finest writing, particularly the two long fragments in Part I, covering (parts of) the tales of Tuor and Turin Túrambar. The former is stunningly beautiful, with the encounter between Tuor and Ulmo surely ranking among the most magical and stunningly realized scenes in all of Tolkien’s work. As for Turin, I have to admit that I found his tale in The Silmarillion to be somewhat hard going, though the end is very powerful. But this is brilliant — very moving, and delving into psychological areas far removed from The Hobbit or even The Lord of the Rings. I found the main chapter of Part II (Aldarion and Erendis) to be rather slow at first, though again beautifully written. It ends pretty powerfully, however — but just when things were finally starting to get moving, the fragment ends! The notes and commentary give ample evidence of how the tale might have been concluded (the broad outlines, at least, being known from other writings).
Parts III and IV move us into the Third Age, and I think a reader who hasn’t tackled The Silmarillion might begin here and find much to enjoy. These pieces are all fascinating and provide some wonderful glimpses of familiar characters (such as Saruman’s ghoulish appearance in the chapter on the disaster of the Gladden Fields).
A mere glance at the table of contents cannot begin to convey the many wonders and delights this book contains. Tolkien’s son and literary heir, Christopher Tolkien, provides extensive and wide-ranging notes and presents content from a variety of sources in addition to the items presented as the main texts. Tolkien senior strove to present his legendarium through the filter of imagined “sources” (such as the Red Book of Westmarch) that give the feel of a discovered mythology, in much the same way that our understanding of the legends of King Arthur is built up on the basis of various medieval sources. Not all of these real-world sources are complete, of course, and in a way the fragmentary nature of the pieces in this book helps to reinforce the illusion that JRR Tolkien was the compiler and editor of much older legends, not all of which are complete or consistent with one another. Where did Galadriel and Celeborn meet, for instance? Different “sources” give different accounts, and on one level this reflects the (real-world) author’s own shifting conceptions of these characters and their stories — a progression admirably elucidated by Christopher Tolkien in his notes and commentary. But on another level, Tolkien senior often explicitly says in his narratives that multiple traditions exist and it is not now possible to judge between them. To me, this gives a particular richness to these fragments, which are beautiful and interesting in their own right but also give tantalizing glimpses beyond the writings that we actually possess — again in very much the same way that an incomplete medieval manuscript can be fascinating and even thrilling for the (partial) light that it sheds on legends and tales we already know from other sources.
The audiobook edition is superbly rendered, with Samuel West reading JRR Tolkien’s writing and Timothy West reading Christopher Tolkien’s notes and commentary. There appear to be some slight adjustments to the notes and commentary for the sake of added clarity in the audio format (these are generally on the order of omitting page numbers and the like), and the notes (given as end notes in the printed book) are interpolated into the main text, so that Timothy cuts in periodically to comment on what Samuel has read. It all works wonderfully well, and both readers are outstanding. One relatively minor quibble is that when there is an actual author’s note (i.e. one written by JRR Tolkien and not by Christopher), these are quite rightly read by Samuel West, but they are not called out as author’s notes, so that the voice of Tolkien as author cuts in unannounced on the voice of Tolkien as narrator. This is very slightly confusing but didn’t in any way affect my enjoyment of the performance. With that very minor exception, I think this audiobook could not be bettered. Truly superb. Well done to all involved!
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- Jack W.
- 09-05-22
A must listen for enthusiastic Tolkien fans
The narration was well done and made the mix of technical description and dialog very easy and enjoyable to listen to. The content of Tolkien's writings bring even more of the Silmarillion, Hobbit and LOTR to life and enriches the view of Tolkiens middle earth beyond what I thought possible.
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