The Fall Of Gondolin Hardcover – August 30, 2018

Gondolin is a city created by elves, hidden away in the mountains, the last outpost of light in the First Age of Middle-earth, when the evil forces of Morgoth have conquered almost everything else. Morgoth knows this city must exist, and he regularly sends search parties of orcs to find it. Its end is almost inevitable, and the story of that end is told in “The Fall of Gondolin,” the last of the unpublished tales of J.R.R. Tolkien.Opposing Morgoth is Ulmo, the god of the sea, who raises up Tuor of the race of men. Tuor undertakes three great journeys in his life.The first is his journey from his own homeland toward the sea, subconsciously hearing the call of Ulmo.The second is his journey to Gondolin, where he comes to live and marry Idril, the daughter and only child of the elvish king. Tuor and Idril have a son, Earendil, who, outside the arc of this story, will have a son named Elrond of Rivendell, a main character of “The Lord of the Rings.”Tuor’s third great journey will be to lead his family and a small remnant of the elves of Gondolin to safety, after the destruction of the city.And thus ends one of the great publishing stories of modern times, a story that began in 1937 with “The Hobbit,” crested in the 1950s with “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and then continued after Tolkien’s death with the publication of “The Silmarillion” in 1977, the 12 volumes of “The History of Middle-earth” (1983-1996), and the three stories of the First Age – “The Children of Hurin” (2007), “Beren and Luthien” (2017), and now “The Fall of Gondolin,” just published August 30.That we have all of these stories since “The Lord of the Rings” is due to Tolkien’s son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien, who has served as editor for all of his father’s publications since Tolkien’s death in 1973. Christopher also edited his father’s non-Middle-earth stories, poems, and translations, including “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun” (2009), “The Fall of Arthur” (2013), and “Beowulf: A Translation” (2014). What Christopher, now 94, has accomplished is no small feat; all of these posthumous works have required extensive editing, research, and text comparisons.Christopher Tolkien says that his father began to write “The Fall of Gondolin” in 1916 or 1917, during World War I. The text version he uses for this publication was written longhand by his father in 1925 and typed by his mother, Edith. But to publish it properly required comparison of texts, versions, notes, and other materials, and Christopher describes it the book (the story itself is 57 of the 304 pages).The edition includes eight plates of illustrations by artist Alan Lee, which are both true to the spirit of Tolkien and his artwork and a profound reinterpretation.“The Fall of Gondolin” includes trademark Tolkien themes and devices. We see the unleashing of dragons, balrogs, and orcs against the city of the elves. We watch the treachery of the king’s nephew. We read the great battle scenes at which Tolkien excelled. And we experience the sorrow and determination of the hero, in this case the man Tuor, leading the few survivors to safety. (Tolkien always managed to save a remnant, a pointed reminder that, in the long run, superior numbers are not always decisive.)It’s a heart-stirring story. It’s also evidence, as if we needed more, of what one man’s imagination produced.

If you are the kind of Tolkien fan who is fascinated by the Silmarillion, this is a must have and makes a beautiful trilogy alongside the Children of Hurin and Beren and Luthien. It really makes me wish Christopher Tolkien had taken the liberty of rewriting some of it so it could have been better incorporated into his version. The account of the battle is so wonderful, it’s a crime it never made it into the finished Silmarillion. A few name changes here and there and it could have been made to fit with the other Silmarillion material. Oh, well.I’ve always loved the tale of Gondolin as much as the tale of Beren and Luthien, but it gets such sadly short shrift in Tolkien’s other published works... even though it appears as early as The Hobbit, when Elrond discovers the identity of Gandalf and Thorin’s swords.The account presented in this book makes up for that, it is thrilling to read and full of beautifully rendered details. It’s such a romantic story, and so full of beauty and adventure, and tragedy and hope. I’d almost say it was even better than Beren and Luthien, but that story is more about true love and is more intimate, whereas the Fall of Gondolin has a broader scope, since it involves Morgoth’s destruction of the last Noldorin stronghold. I think the fact that it culminates in Eärendil’s birth also makes it special, since he was saved from the ruin to later become the savior of Middle-earth and the scion of the kings of Numenor.These books are like the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid of the Elder Days.

In “The Fall of Gondolin”, Christopher Tolkien continues his project of editing his father’s three great tales of the First Age of Middle Earth. He writes in his introduction, “When the time had come, as I supposed, to end at last this long series of editions it occurred to me to try out, as best as I could, a different mode: to follow, using previously published texts, one single particular narrative from its earliest existing form and throughout its later development” (pg. 13). In this, Tolkien follows the method he used in “Beren and Lúthien” (2017) rather than that of “The Children of Húrin” (2007), which told a more-or-less coherent story adapted from the various alterations (using the appendix to explain those changes).The story focuses on the secret Elven city of Gondolin and the arrival of Tuor, one of Húrin’s kinsfolk, who comes to the city at the behest of Ulmo, the Vala who rules over the waters and the sea, in order to warn of Morgoth’s planned attack. Turgon, who built the city, refuses to abandon it and Tuor settles among the people. Tuor weds Idril Celebrindal and fathers with her Eärendel the Mariner. Their union is the second between Elves and Men following that of Beren and Lúthien (and thus also helps to foreshadow the union of Aragorn and Arwen). At the time of Morgoth’s sack of Gondolin, Tuor defends Idril and Eärendel as they flee the city under the onslaught of Morgoth’s Balrogs and fire drakes. Glorfindel defends them against a Balrog in the mountains, enabling them to flee to the sea.In his conclusion, Tolkien refers to the Lost Tale of Eärendel, never written, before discussing how it relates to the “Fall of Gondolin”. Though he cautions, “To set out and discuss these often contradictory outlines in their clipped phrases would be contrary to the purpose of these two books [the present one and ‘Beren and Lúthien’]: the comparative histories of narratives as they evolved” (pg. 241). He does, however, focus on the two main variants of the conclusion in order to complete his story. As the final of the three tales of the First Age, “The Fall of Gondolin” more than measures up to expectations. J.R.R. Tolkien’s prose is as ever a delight to read and Alan Lee’s illustrations compliment the text as no other. A must-read for Tolkien fans.