"PREFACE" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol04)

try to show, and not merely impressionistically, how Middle-
earth and its history was built up gradually and delicately, and
how a long series of small shifts or combinations would often
lead to the emergence of new and unforeseen structures - as
far example in the story of Gwindor of Nargothrond (p. 217).
The arrangement of the texts of the 'Sketch of the Mythol-
ogy' and the Quenta, split into numbered sections comparable
from one text to the other, is explained on p. 11. The earlier
volumes in the series are referred to as I (The Book of Lost
Tales Part I), II (The Book of Lost Tales Part II), and III (The
Lays of Beleriand).*
The maps and diagrams in the book are reproduced with
the permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and I thank the
staff of the Department of Western Manuscripts at the Bodleian
for their assistance.
The fifth volume will contain my father's unfinished 'time-
travel' story, The Lost Road, together with the earliest forms
of the legend of Numenor, which were closely related to it;
the Lhammas or Account of Tongues, Etymologies; and all the
writings concerned with the First Age up to the time when The
Lord of the Rings was begun.

(* Note that all page numbers refer to the hardcover Houghton Mifflin editions.)