When thinking about fantasy universes that have incredibly expansive world, J.R.R. Tolkien's stories about Middle-earth, The Lord of the Rings in particular, are some of the first works that come to mind. Tolkien managed to create a whole history and lore around the fictional world that he dreamed up for his books, inventing whole languages that differ between people groups. In other words, it's a lot. And that's precisely what a lot of fans and even casual observers appreciate about Tolkien's work - there's so much of it, and it was clearly a labor of passion. The amount of detail just makes the world feel that much more real and lived-in.

Of course, the sheer amount of content that Tolkien put out into the world can also be incredibly daunting for those who want to venture into the world of his books for the first time, and even for some who have been fans for a while, but have never read every single thing he's written. The stories weren't necessarily written in timeline order, either, which makes trying to figure out what happened when that much more confusing. Here's a guide to what order Tolkien's Middle-earth books need to be read in, as well as how many of them there are.

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How Many Books Did Tolkien Write?

Though The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are definitely Tolkien's most popular works, he worked on so much more than just those. He was a professor by trade, and was very prolific in the writing sphere. In total, he wrote more than 29 books and translated or contributed to 36 more, for a total of 65 books that he either fully wrote or at least worked on in one way or another. Many of those were essay collections and non-fiction, because of his academic profession, but a chunk of them were dedicated to Middle-earth as well. There is a bit of disagreement as to exactly how many books Tolkien wrote, as much of his work was published posthumously and may have been made into collections when that was not the original intention, as well as the fact that he considered the Lord of the Rings series to be 6 books despite it being published as 3.

What Order Should Tolkien's Books Be Read In?

Obviously, not all of Tolkien's work needs to be read in sequence, as some of it is non-fiction or just entirely standalone. However, the Middle-earth books are the ones that can be quite confusing to parse, and there are a couple orders that the books can be read in. The first option, and the more common approach, is to read the books in their original publishing order.

The Hobbit would come first, then The Lord of the Rings, then The Silmarillion (which was published posthumously), and then finally the collected history books, which can really be read in any order as they contain various additional information about the world and it's history. These 4 books are Unfinished Tales, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin. Some people prefer to start with The Lord of the Rings and read The Hobbit after as a prequel, but The Hobbit was technically published first and is also an easier read (it was originally intended for children), so it might be a better starting point.

While that's one order, some readers get more value out of reading the stories in chronological order according to the events of Middle-earth itself - aka reading through the timeline. If one were to use this approach, they would start with The Silmarillion, which describes the beginnings of Middle-earth. Next would be The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin, which give further expansion on the Great Tales of the Elder Days, which is featured briefly in The Silmarillion. Unfinished Tales would be next (as it gives context about a lot of Second Age events), then The Hobbit, and finally The Lord of the Rings. This is a good approach for those who are already familiar with Tolkien and want to put the timeline of events into perspective.

What Are The Earliest and Latest Books Tolkien Wrote?

Though The Hobbit was the earliest Tolkien work to be published, it wasn't technically the first one he wrote. The first Middle-earth story that Tolkien put to paper was actually The Book of Lost Tales. These were later published (in the 1980s) as a collection, and essentially were the earliest forms of the lore that would later make up The Silmarillion. The first identifiable Middle-earth writing that Tolkien did was a poem called "The Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star".

The last work that Tolkien published prior to his death was The Lord of the Rings, and everything that was published after was posthumous. He worked on many of his stories on and off for his whole life, so it's difficult to pinpoint which was the last he ever wrote, and he was still working on a lot of Middle-earth's histories even right before his death. It is believed that the last things he worked on was a final addition to his legendarium in which he wrote about Galadriel and Celeborn. The most recent Tolkien book to be published was The Fall of Gondolin in 2018.

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