The Book of Lost Tales was the first major work of imagination by J.R.R. Tolkien, begun in 1916-1917 when he was twenty five years old and left incomplete several years later. It stands at the beginning of the entire conception of Middle-earth and Valinor, for the Lost Tales were the first form of the myths and legends that came to be called The Silmarillion. Embedded in English legend and English association, they are set in the narrative frame of a great westward voyage over the Ocean by a mariner named Eriel to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, where Elves dwelt; from them he learned their true history, the Lost Tales of Elfinesse. In the Tales are found earliest accounts and original ideas of Gods and Elves, Dwarves, Balrogs, and Orcs; of the Silmarils and the Two Trees of Valinor; of Narhothrond and Gondolin; of the geography and cosmography of the invented world.
The Book of Lost Tales is published in two volumes: this first part contains the Tales of Valinor; and the second includes Beren and Luthien, Turin and the Dragon, and the only full narratives of the Necklace of the Dwarves and the Fall of Gondolin. Each tale is followed by commentary in the form of a short essay, together with the texts of association poems; and each volume contains extensive information on names and vocabulary in the earlist Elvish languages.
