the history of Middle-Earth

The History of Middle-earth (commonly referred to as HoME) is, like the better known Silmarillion, a compilation of the work of J.R.R. Tolkien put together and published by his son Christopher after his death. If your thought the Lord of the Rings was a brick you ain't seen nothing yet – HoME is comprised of twelve volumes of coffee table adorning glory (not including the index which gets its own book). HoME is comprised of older versions of stories found elsewhere and material that didn't make it into the Lord of the Rings or the Silmarillion. Met by cries “but this contradicts the canon!” HoME is frequently perused by hardcore Tolkien fans trying to figure out just how biased the imaginary in-universe authors of the texts really are and who the hell Tom Bombadil is anyway.