J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) was an English author best known for his high fantasy novels including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and others. Aside from being an author, Tolkien was also a poet, university professor and philologist. Due to Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books, he was able to breathe new life into the fantasy (and more specifically, high fantasy) genre. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have each been adapted into other mediums several times, but the most famous adaptations are the Peter Jackson film adaptations of each. Evidently, his legacy lives on decades after his passing due to movie adaptations of his work and as a major inspiration to any fantasy novelist.

Tolkien had poems published as far back as 1911, but his first novel was The Hobbit, or There and Back Again and was published in 1937. Below is a list of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels and some of his other published works in order of publication and chronological order:

Publication Order of The Lord of the Rings Books

The Hobbit (1937)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Two Towers (1954)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Return of the King (1955)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Middle-Earth Universe Books

Tolkien's World: Paintings of Middle-Earth (1992)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Poems From The Hobbit (1999)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of The History of Middle-Earth Books

The Book of Lost Tales, Part One (1983)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (1984)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Lays of Beleriand (1985)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The War of the Jewels (1994)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The History of Middle Earth Index (2002)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Great Tales of Middle-Earth (2018)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of History Of The Lord Of The Rings Collections

The Return of the Shadow (1988)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Treason of Isengard (1989)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The War of the Ring (1990)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Sauron Defeated (1992)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Tales of Middle Earth Books

The Fall of Gondolin (2018)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Fall of Númenor: and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth (2022)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Later Silmarillion Collections

Morgoth's Ring: The Legends of Aman (1993)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun (1945)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Farmer Giles of Ham (1949)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Drawings by Tolkien (1976)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Roverandom (1998)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Children of Húrin (2007)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún (2009)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Story of Kullervo (2015)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Lost Manuscript (2016)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Beren and Lúthien (2017)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Smith of Wootton Major (1967)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Tales from the Perilous Realm (1949)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Tree and Leaf (1964)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Tolkien Reader (1966)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Poems and Stories (1971)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Letters from Father Christmas (1976)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Silmarillion (1977)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth (1980)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
A Tolkien Miscellany (2002)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Fall of Arthur (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo (With: Christopher Tolkien,Unknown) (2021)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Battle of Maldon (With: Peter Grybauskaus) (2023)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary (1921)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Beowulf and the Critics (1936)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Tolkien on Fairy-stories (1939)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien (1981)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode (1982)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Monsters and the Critics: The Essays of J.R.R. Tolkien (1983)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Father Christmas Letters (1994)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Nature of Middle-Earth (With: Carl F. Hostetter) (2021)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Publication Order of Anthologies

Over the Rainbow(1983)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
The Random House Book of Fantasy Stories(1997)Description / Buy at Amazon.com
Tales Before Narnia: The Roots of Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction(2008)Description / Buy at Amazon.com

Note: The full title of The Hobbit is The Hobbit, or There and Back Again.

If You Like J.R.R. Tolkien Books, You’ll Love…

Order of Books » Authors » Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Books

One Response to “Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Books”

  1. Paul Bunyan: 4 years ago

    Where are the Apple links?

    Reply

Leave a Reply