J. R. R. Tolkien in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving. In 1946, he rejected suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of "The Hobbit" as "too Disnified ... Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of". Tolkien was sceptical of the emerging Tolkien fandom in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of "The Lord of the Rings": He had dismissed dramatic representations of fantasy in his essay "On Fairy-Stories", first presented in 1939: Tolkien
Christopher Tolkien "Beren and Lúthien " is an editorial work and was published as a stand-alone book in 2017. The next year, "The Fall of Gondolin " was published also as an editorial work. The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien, and The Fall of Gondolin make up the three "Great Tales" of the Elder Days which J.R.R. Tolkien considered to be the biggest stories of the First Age. HarperCollins published other J. R. R. Tolkien work edited by Christopher Tolkien which is not connected to the Middle-earth legendarium. "The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún" appeared in May 2009, a verse retelling