Order of J.R.R. Tolkien Books

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 Lord Of The Rings Books

The Hobbit	(1937)
The Fellowship of the Ring	(1954)
The Two Towers	(1954)
The Return of the King	(1955)

Publication Order of History Of Middle-Earth Collections

The Book of Lost Tales	(1983)
The Book of Lost Tales: Part Two	(1984)
The Lays of Beleriand	(1985)
The Shaping of Middle-Earth	(1987)
The Lost Road and Other Writings	(1987)

Publication Order of History Of The Lord Of The Rings Collections

The Return of the Shadow	(1988)
The Treason of Isengard	(1989)
The War of the Ring	(1990)
Sauron Defeated	(1992)

Publication Order of Later Silmarillion Collections

Morgoth's Ring: The Legends of Aman	(1993)
The War of the Jewels: The Legends of Beleriand	(1994)

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Farmer Giles of Ham	(1949)
Roverandom	(1998)
The Children of Hurin	(2007)
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun	(2009)

Publication Order of Short Stories

Smith of Wootton Major

(1964)

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

The Silmarillion	(1937)
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil	(1962)
The Tolkien Reader	(1964)
Tree and Leaf	(1964)
The Father Christmas Letters	(1976)
Poems and Stories	(1980)
Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth	(1980)
Tales from the Perilous Realm	(1993)
The Peoples of Middle-Earth	(1996)
The Fall of Arthur	(2013)

Publication Order of Picture Books

Mr. Bliss	(1937)
Bilbo's Last Song	(1974)
Oliphaunt	(1989)

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

A Middle English Reader and Vocabulary	(1922)
The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien	(1981)
Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode	(1983)
The Monsters and the Critics: The Essays of J.R.R. Tolkien	(1983)

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…

• C.S. Lewis
• J.K. Rowling
• George R.R. Martin