Unfinished Tales was first published posthumously in 1980 from J.R.R. Tolkien’s unfinished Middle-earth writings.
Christopher Tolkien edited the collection after his father’s death, selecting narratives and background material that expanded stories from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings. The book includes accounts connected with Númenor, the First Age, the Third Age, and characters such as Galadriel, Celeborn, and Gandalf.
The title is descriptive: these are not all complete, polished narratives. Some sections contain multiple versions, editorial notes, or gaps, and Christopher Tolkien explains how he handled the surviving manuscripts. That makes the book valuable for readers interested in Tolkien’s creative process as well as in the stories themselves.
Unfinished Tales is sometimes confused with The Children of Húrin, which was published later, in 2007, as a more unified edition of one tragic First Age story. The 1980 date specifically belongs to Unfinished Tales.