J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937, and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in the 1950s. But he spent the years from 1914 to his death in 1973 building and refining his fictional universe called Middle-Earth, including original languages and a history covering many thousands of years. He left behind reams of unpublished stories, along with research and notes on Middle-Earth. The story that became the new Amazon Prime TV series Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power is part of that rich unpublished history. It takes place as the First Age moves to the Second Age and concerns an island called Númenor (The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place during the Third Age).
Tolkien’s writings on Númenor will be published in November in a book titled The Fall of Númenor. The inspiration for it came to Tolkien suddenly in 1936. Smithsonian has a brief overview of the story of Númenor and how it fits into the mythology of Middle-Earth, and then takes a deep dive into the historical forces that inspired Tolkien’s story.
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Source: neatorama