What was the title of Tolkien’s 1977 posthumous collection of Middle-earth myths?

Tolkien’s 1977 posthumous collection of Middle-earth myths was titled The Silmarillion.

The book was edited and arranged by Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien and published four years after J.R.R. Tolkien’s death. It presents stories covering the creation of the world, the history of the Elves, the First Age, and later events connected with Númenor and Middle-earth.

The title refers to the Silmarils, three radiant jewels made by the Elf Fëanor. Their theft by Morgoth drives much of the central conflict in the book’s most detailed narrative section, the Quenta Silmarillion.

Unlike The Hobbit, The Silmarillion is not a single quest novel with one continuous narrative style. It is a collection of mythic histories, legends, genealogies, and related texts. Readers sometimes expect a direct sequel to The Lord of the Rings, but its main stories take place thousands of years earlier.