Quenta Silmarillion
the Tale of the Silmarils; the third Book
Nature
Quenta Silmarillion — “the Tale (or History) of the Silmarils” — is the great narrative book of the published Silmarillion: the history of the First Age from the awakening of the Elves and the making of the Silmarils, through the rebellion and exile of the Noldor, the wars of Beleriand against Morgoth, to the War of Wrath and the end of the age. It is the tragic epic of the legendarium — “the chief ‘Quenta’” — its chapters (Of the Beginning of Days, Of the Coming of the Elves, Of the Silmarils, Of Beren and Lúthien, Of the Ruin of Doriath, Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin, Of the Voyage of Eärendil) forming the heart of Tolkien’s mythology.
Contents
From the Years of the Trees to the awakening of the Children. The making of the Silmarils, the Oath, the Kinslayings, and the Exile of the Noldor. The ages of Beleriand: the Long Peace, the hidden kingdoms (Doriath, Gondolin, Nargothrond), the great battles, the tales of Beren and Lúthien, of Túrin, of Tuor; the fall of the realms; and the final War of Wrath, the rupture and drowning of Beleriand.
Composition and Versions
The Quenta was the rock of Tolkien’s life-work: the great “Quenta Silmarillion” grew from the earliest Book of Lost Tales (the “Tale of the Silmarils” 1917ff.) through the Quenta Noldorinwa, the Quenta Silmarillion of the 1930s, and the incomplete late rewritings on which Christopher Tolkien based the published 1977 text — assembling the whole with editorial stitching (whose seams are discussed in The Shaping of Middle-earth, The Lost Road, Morgoth’s Ring, The War of the Jewels, and The Peoples of Middle-earth). The “Quenta” is thus at once Tolkien’s single most-rewritten text and, in the printed book, an editorial achievement, not a unitary manuscript.