Reading order after "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Children of Húrin" [duplicate]

Question

I've already read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Children of Húrin, and I'm considering where to go from here. I'm currently thinking about reading The Fall of Gondolin, The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and Beren and Lúthien and then leave my Tolkien journey at that, at least for a while.

I feel like a logical order would be to go to The Fall of Gondolin next, but I never see this recommendation anywhere; generally the advice is to read The Silmarillion first. I know that it's a little different, in not providing one but several versions of the story, but still, doesn't it make sense from a storyline perspective to read The Fall of Gondolin immediately after The Children of Húrin? (I suppose The Silmarillion could be read before both of them, but that ship has sailed.) Or is The Silmarillion required to make any sense of it?

Answer 1

As you are probably aware, The Silmarillion just represents a best-effort attempt to provide a somewhat logical compilation of the various early writings, which ranged from plot outlines to nearly-ready-for-publication stories. Unfinished Tales is comparable to a compilation of deleted scenes for The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, while the other volumes are basically just polished versions of some of the closer-to-publishable stores which had been abridged to fit them better into The Silmarillion as published.

As such, I wouldn't worry about reading them in anything other than publication order:

1. The Hobbit
2. The Lord of the Rings
3. The Silmarillion
4. Unfinished Tales
5. The Children of Húrin
6. Beren and Lúthien
7. The Fall of Gondolin

There's no particular narrative benefit to reading the standalone versions in any order prior to The Silmariilion.

Beyond this, if you really want to get into the textual history of stories, you might insert The Book of Lost Tales, parts 1 and 2, (and some other volumes from The History of Middle-earth) after Unfinished Tales, though be aware that some of the texts in these books are quite different from the "settled" versions that were published in The Silmarillion et al.

Answer 2

Read the Silmarillion prior to either Beren and Luthien or Fall of Gondolin

Given that you've already read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings (presumably you didn't skip the appendices), and The Children of Hurin, and looking at the books you're interested in pursuing:

• The Silmarillion is the only book from your to read list which represents a more or less straightforward narrative. It gives an overview of much of the First Age. Children of Hurin, which you've already read, is told in a more compressed form in one of the chapters of this book.

• Unfinished Tales contains a number of shorter narrative works from across the final stage of the legendarium, most of which are unfinished in some form or another. The first two are included in Fall of Gondolin and Children of Hurin, so I'd recommend skipping those sections while reading Unfinished Tales. The rest of the book can be understood fine having just read the LotR appendices, though reading the Akallabêth from the Silmarillion can help.

• Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin are not books meant to be consumed simply as in-universe works, but are fully out-of-universe and showcase the external development that JRR Tolkien made to those tales over his life. They begin with the earliest version of each tale, and then show changes made until they reach the versions used in the Silmarillion. It's a similar concept to The History of Middle-earth, but with a focus on an individual tale over time instead of the entire legendarium during a single phase. For these two books I'd say that you should really at least read the final version in the Silmarillion prior to reading the early or incomplete drafts that these books are about.

Also, not on your list, but you might be interested in The Fall of Numenor. That book is a lot closer to Children of Hurin in that it combines previously published incomplete works to form a continuous story you can just read without needing to know any external context.

If you'd be interested in adding Fall of Numenor, I'd suggest the following order for you:

1. Silmarillion, but stop before Akallabêth.
2. The Fall of Numenor
3. Unfinished Tales, starting from the "Third Age" section
4. Beren and Luthien and Fall of Gondolin, in either order

And then if you find yourself really enjoying the early drafts in B&L and FoG, consider giving The History of Middle-earth a try.