Unfinished Tales was published posthumously in 1980 as a collection of stories from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth.
The volume was edited by Christopher Tolkien and contains narratives from different periods of Tolkien’s legendarium. Its subjects include the First Age, the Second Age, and the Third Age, with material concerning figures such as Tuor, Túrin, Númenor, Galadriel, and the history of the Wizards.
The title is important: these texts are not presented as a single completed novel. Some are relatively developed narratives, while others survive as fragments, drafts, summaries, or conflicting versions. Christopher’s editorial comments explain the differences and show how Tolkien’s ideas changed over time.
The Children of Húrin is a separate posthumous book assembled from the story of Túrin. The Book of Lost Tales is an earlier stage of Tolkien’s mythology, later published in two volumes within The History of Middle-earth. Unfinished Tales appeared before those later scholarly editions.