Morgoth's Ring

Morgoth's Ring (1993) is the tenth volume of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth in which he analyses the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. It contains "The Annals of Aman" which presents the history of Arda with year-by-year entries like real-world annals, and "Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth" which presents a discussion of death and immortality between an Elf and a human. Reviewers welcomed the volume, noting that it reveals Tolkien exploring hard questions about his mythology, and struggling to reconcile them, to the extent that he unsuccessfully attempts a destructive reworking of the entire cosmology of Arda. The issues covered include death, immortality, and the extent to which Tolkien embodied Christianity in Middle-earth; evil and the origin of Orcs; and Tolkien's attempts to replace his mythology with "feigned history".