What is the name of the first story in J.R.R. Tolkien’s published book Unfinished Tales?
Answer
Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin
The first story in J.R.R. Tolkien’s published book Unfinished Tales is Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin.
Unfinished Tales was edited by Christopher Tolkien and published in 1980, seven years after J.R.R. Tolkien’s death. Its opening narrative, Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin, expands the story of Tuor’s journey to the hidden Elven city of Gondolin in the First Age. The text is one of the more developed prose versions among the unfinished materials collected in the volume.
The book contains narratives from several periods of Middle-earth’s history, including the First Age, the Second Age, and the Third Age. Other sections discuss Númenor, the foundation of Rohan, the disaster of the Gladden Fields, and events involving the Witch-king. Christopher Tolkien supplied editorial notes and explanations because many texts were incomplete or existed in multiple versions. Unfinished Tales is therefore a sourcebook of related narratives rather than a single finished novel.