The Shaping of Middle-earth is the fourth volume of Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Tolkien

Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...

's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth

The History of Middle-earth

The History of Middle-earth is a 12-volume series of books published from 1983 through to 1996 that collect and analyse material relating to the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, compiled and edited by his son, Christopher Tolkien. Some of the content consists of earlier versions of already published...

in which he analyses the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...

.

In it the gradual transition from the "primitive" legendaria

Legendarium

Legendary may refer to:*A hagiography, or study of the lives of saints and other religious figures**The South English Legendary, a Middle English legendary*A legend-Entertainment:*Legendary, an album by Kaysha*Legendary...

 of The Book of Lost Tales

The Book of Lost Tales

The Book of Lost Tales is the title of a collection of early stories by J. R. R. Tolkien, and of the first two volumes of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth, in which he presents and analyses the manuscripts of those stories, which were the earliest form of the...

to what would become The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion

The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...

is described, and it contains a text which could be seen as the first "Silmarillion": the "Sketch of the Mythology".

Three very interesting other parts are the Ambarkanta or "Shape of the World", a collection of maps and diagrams of the world described by Tolkien; and the Annals of Valinor

Valinor

Valinor is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the realm of the Valar in Aman. It was also known as the Undying Lands, along with Tol Eressëa and the outliers of Aman. This is something of a misnomer; only immortal beings were allowed to reside there, but the land itself,...

 and Beleriand

Beleriand

In J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional legendarium, Beleriand was a region in northwestern Middle-earth during the First Age. Events in Beleriand are described chiefly in his work The Silmarillion, which tells the story of the early ages of Middle-earth in a style similar to the epic hero tales of Nordic...

, chronological works which started out as timelines but gradually turned into full narrative.

Book contents:

1. Prose fragments following the Lost Tales — brief, uncompleted texts which continue on from The Book of Lost Tales
2. The earliest "Silmarillion" — also referred to as the "Sketch of the Mythology", this is the start of the Silmarillion proper
3. The Quenta — a further developed version of the "Sketch", the first full narrative since the Tales
4. The first "Silmarillion" map — a reproduction of the first map of Beleriand
5. The Ambarkanta — cosmological essays, maps, and diagrams
6. The earliest Annals of Valinor
7. The earliest Annals of Beleriand

There is an inscription in the Fëanorian characters (Tengwar

Tengwar

The Tengwar are an artificial script created by J. R. R. Tolkien. In his fictional universe of Middle-earth, the tengwar were invented by the Elf Fëanor, and used first to write the Elven tongues: Quenya, Telerin, and also Valarin. Later a great number of languages of Middle-earth were written...

, an alphabet Tolkien has devised for High-Elves) in the first pages of every History of Middle-earth volume, written by Christopher Tolkien and describing the contents of the book. The inscription in Book IV reads: "Herein are the Quenta Noldorinwa, the History of the Gnomes, the Ambarkanta or Shape of the World by Rúmil, the Annals of Valinor and the Annals of Beleriand by Pengolod, the Wise of Gondolin with maps of the world in the Elder Days

Elder Days

In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Elder Days are the first Ages of Middle-earth.During the Second and Third Age, the term referred to the First Age and before, but in the Fourth Age the term began to be applied to all three ages which came before: a time before the dominance of Men and the...

 and translations made by Ælfwine the Mariner of England into the tongue of his own land.".