With Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power having aired there has been a resurgence of interest in the vibrant fantasy world created by JRR Tolkien over a century ago. What many might not know is that there is a whole universe in several books that expand what we know outside of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
For those not familiar with the new television series, it is set in the Second Age of Tolkien’s mythology. To give that some perspective, his most famous works, The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954-55), are set during the Third Age, which means that the events of the show take place approximately four and a half thousand years prior to the events of Lord of the Rings.
The universe created by Tolkien is vast, with an incredible depth of vision and detail that inspires people to this day. While Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings film trilogy is widely considered to be a masterpiece of cinema, he was still obliged to make alterations to Tolkien’s story, and took even more liberties with the less well-received Hobbit trilogy.
The Amazon streaming service only has the rights to the appendices to the Lord of the Rings books and The Hobbit so the film-makers have had to draw all their material…
