I'm such a nerd when it comes to Tolkien. I want to read it all.

It took me a long time to get to this book. I started it once but couldn't follow it. Things went much better this time. There is a wealth of beautiful descriptions and prose all throughout the book.

Very enjoyable read.

Great reading this. Loved seeing the process of the work that later became the Silmarillion

A heavy book to read, in my oponion heavier then Silmarillion.

BoLTp1 is the first half of an early attempt at what would eventually become The Silmarillian, supplied with notes and commentary by Christopher Tolkien, the author's son. Compiled from notes and drafts from a number of hand-written notebooks, BoLTp1 follows the vein of Unfinished Tales and kicks off the twelve-volume history of Middle-Earth in which Tolkien the younger explores his fathers vast and slowly-developing legendarium.

I actually liked this a lot better than Unfinished Tales. It's still dry, and it will really only be of interest to Tolkien fans who actually enjoy The Silmarillian. In this early version follows a man named Eriol who encounters a cottage full of tiny faeries who proceed to walk him through the Lost Tales--stories of their history before they diminished. The framing story was eventually abandoned, and the individual tales therein are in various stages of completion, but this early rendering is remarkably insightful. The mythology feels much more like Nordic mythology than the more Christian-like version that was ultimately published. The Gods are more petty and human. Melko feels much more akin to the trickster god Loki than the Lucifer-esque Melkor incarnation of the Silmarillian.

Even though the Lost Tales didn't survive, BoLTp1 demonstrates the passion of a young man (Tolkien wrote much of it in his twenties) who lives for the stories he wants to tell as he starts on a tremendous storytelling journey.

Christopher Tolkien e den mest tålmodige og grundige mannen noensinne, æ kunne faktisk aldri. Han gjor innholdet underholdende gjennom kommentaran sine

Such a great book showing how the Silmarillion and Middle-Earth lore was first created back in the 1910s. Seeing the stories I've read from the Silmarillion in their early forms is very interesting and explains alot I didn't understand the first time. The commentary by Christopher Tolkien is such a great help to understanding the stories and their history. The foreword has a great few sentences summing up both this book and the Silmarillion:
"Provided that the reader has a place, a point of vantage, in the imagined time from which to look back, the extreme oldness of the extremely old can be made apparent and made to be felt continuously. And the very fact that The Lord of the Rings establishes such a powerful sense of a real time-structure (far more powerful than can be done by mere chronological assertion, tables of dates) provides this necessary vantage-point. To read The Silmarillion one must place oneself imaginatively at the time of the ending of the Third Age – within Middle-earth, looking back: at the temporal point of Sam Gamgee’s ‘I like that!’ – adding, ‘I should like to know more about it’."
Tolkien, J.R.R., and Tolkien, Christopher. The Book of Lost Tales Part One. Del Rey, 2020.

The Book of Lost Tales contains the very earliest writings by Tolkien on the mythology that would eventually make up The Silmarillion and the glimpses of the history of Middle-earth seen in Lord of the Rings. As such, the story and characters are familiar yet also completely alien, and the writing style is more archaic.

Part One details the very beginnings of Middle-earth: the music of Ainur, the coming of the Valar, the creation and loss of the Two Trees, the waking of the Elves and their revolt under Fëanor, and the evil doings of Melkor (at this stage named Melko), ending of with the waking of Men and the return of the Noldoli [Noldor] into Middle-earth.

All of this is framed as being told to an Anglo-Saxon man, Eriol, who has washed up on the shores of Tol Eressëa and is welcomed by the Elves and told their history. Eriol is not only a framing character to the Lost Tales but is also the in-universe explanation for the existence of for the 'lost' stories presence in the modern world (the Red Book of Westmarch functions in a similar way in Rings).

It is interesting to see the beginnings of Arda, to see the seeds and roots of what was there at the very beginning and to see what has changed, gaining insight into how Middle-earth evolved in Tolkien's mind. However, it can be heavy going at times.

The typical HOME disclaimer should apply: the History of Middle-earth series is for the more hardcore Tolkien enthusiasts, dealing with Tolkien's drafts and notes. It should also be noted that The Book of Lost Tales is harder going than your typical Tolkien because the writing style is more archaic – and honestly, if you struggled with Rings, if you struggled with The Silmarillion, you're most likely to struggle even more with this.

To be honest, I only wanted to read this because I read n  Part Twon some years ago and I wanted to complete the set – the stories of the Valar and the beginning of days have always been my least favourite part of The Silmarillion (a bit too Biblical). Yet here, suddenly it works for me and I'm falling in love with every single Vala I meet (except Ossë and, uh, obviously also Melko). The writing style I expected to hold me back is actually a plus here – sure, Tolkien's the type of writer that wants you to stop and smell the roses, then read a ten-page ode about them and mourn for all the lost and untold things in the world, but he writes with such beautiful imagery. At the Coming of the Valar and the Tale of the Sun and the Moon, I was near tears it was so beautiful.

Even Christopher Tolkien's commentary on each chapter is not as dense and they usually are, which can only be a plus. This is probably aided by the fact that the tales themselves are on the whole complete. Only the last tale – that concerning the arrival of the Noldoli [Noldor] out of Valinor and the awakening of the race of Man – is left incomplete, which is frustrating because if it had been completed The Book of Lost Tales, Part One could easily standalone.

I am so glad I decided to complete this because the writing of The Book of Lost Tales is so beautiful. Not only that, but this book has given me a new appreciation of the more divine side of Tolkien's mythology. Yet even so, I acknowledge that it is not the easiest or best book to read and if you're not a Tolkien enthusiast you should probably avoid.

Acabo de terminar de leer este libro y me llevo un muy buen sabor de boca.

El libro es un recopilado de cuentos que escribió Tolkien, Se podría decir que un solo cuento. Es la historia de un hombre llamado Eriol, un navegante, que por casualidad llega, en sus viajes, a una cabaña llamada LA CABAÑA DEL JUEGO PERDIDO. En esta cabaña viven algunos elfos y algunos de ellos le cuentan a Eriol todos sobre la creación del mundo, los dioses y el despertar de hombres y elfos.

Un libro muy ilustrativo lleno de notas sobre los cuentos, apéndices y nombres.

Details the history of the writing Middle-Earth, showing the more “primordial” versions of the beginning of the Silmarillion. I found this one interesting, but harder to get through than any other Tolkien book I’ve read, although that may have just been me.

A collection of stories set in the world of Middle-Earth, The Book of Lost Tales contains stories from the history of the land and its people. They are beautiful tales, with a mix of mythology and magic. It was never finished by Tolkein, but was compiled and reorganized by his son. The stories are connected by its introductions, the story of a man hearing these tales from a nearly forgotten place.
tIt was really cool to delve into some of the stories and mythos of Middle-Earth. I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series, but never considered myself much of a fan. Those were the only books I read, though I also enjoyed the movies. Before this book, that was the extent of my LotR investment. I had not looked into the history or backstory, but this was so fun! Though there were some parts that felt a bit wordy, overall it was very interesting. I have always enjoyed mythology and folklore, and I used to check out books on them from the library. It was interesting to see a fantasy version of it. It is not for the light reader, with the multitude of characters whose names sound awfully similar and the notes referencing other events and characters. It is always cool to see the themes that nearly always appear in the mythology of every culture through a new story.
tThere are 10 tales, each full of magic and beauty. They span a long period of time with the characters of gods, elves, dwarves, gnomes all appearing. I would definitely recommend this for any LotR fan or those who like high fantasy. Be ready to be flipping back and forth from the story and the annotations for clarity. It is deep mythology with beautiful imagery. There is some mention of war and death, however overall it is pretty clean.

I enjoyed this. The notes were overwhelming. The stories ok.

¡Más de dos puñ*teros años me ha costado leerlo!