The last of my Christmas presents. This 2020 edition contains 18 color illustrations by Alan Lee, John Howe, and Ted Naismith, and four pencil illustrations at the head of four separate sections, as well as endpaper maps drawn by Christopher Tolkien. It is what it says on the label, stories and explorations by J. R. R. Tolkien into his invented world of Middle-earth that were never completed. They are written speculations and tales by the author as he tried to flesh out his mythical history, and have no established 'canonicity' as such, but offer glimpses into Tolkien's thinking and creative process, and have been accepted as at least his initial intentions for the facts of his legendarium. "Unfinished Tales" was first published in 1980, between the publication of "The Silmarillion" and before the beginning of the ambitious and inclusive 12-volume "The History of Middle-earth".
I got my first copy of "Unfinished Tales" on November 29, 1980. I know because I wrote it on the inside cover (this was back when I did such things). While I read it all with some intensity (even deciphering the elf runes on the title page, I was most interested in the parts that had to do with Gandalf and the other wizards, the different take on Bilbo and the Quest of Erebor, and the insight into the Ringwraiths and into Gollum's movements in The Hunt for the Ring.
Over the years I got a couple of paperback copies, more for the interesting covers than as reading copies. Terlizzi's whimsical concept of a hobbit going over Tolkien's papers was especially fun, and pictures showing a take on one of Sauron's incarnations were sufficiently rare to intrigue me.
There have been several other hardback editions of the book, but this is the first one since 1980 that I've felt that I must have, mostly for the illustrations.
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