Originally Posted by
Hunchback Jack
I’ve been reading The Fall of Numenor, and I have to say I think it’s really worth getting and reading. It takes second age tales from a number of different sources, and assembles them into a chronological narrative. It even includes some snippets from the recently released nature of middle earth, and is annotated in many places by Tolkien’s own explanation from letters, etc.
So while, strictly speaking, there is “no new material”, I think there’s a lot of value in placing these works and explanations in context, chronologically.
Personally, too, while I have read The Lord of the Rings Appendices, the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, The History of Middle-Earth, and the Letters, I did so over a stretch of *many* years. Piecing together the relevant second age passages and reading them all at the same time brings much clearer understanding.
HBJ