The Book of Lost Tales is a collection of early stories by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, published as 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 (begun in 1917) of the complex fictional myths that would eventually form The Silmarillion.

"[3] The science fiction critic Dave Langford reviewed The Book of Lost Tales II for White Dwarf #59, stating that he had mixed feelings about it, since while it provided some added depth, he was not sure that every detail was worth "annotating with such ghastly solemnity.

He likens the book's relationship to The Silmarillion to that of a charcoal sketch and the oil painting that it precedes: much work is evidently needed.

He notes, too, what he calls a major problem facing Tolkien: how "to present his mythology in the proper perspective", commenting that it was meant to be "a survival from the remotest antiquity".

That, Noad writes, requires an indirect approach, which The Hobbit eventually provided: the legendarium became the distant past to the story in the foreground.

All the same, he feels it is "more of use to the curious" or the researcher than a stand-alone work; he finds the writing "stilted", failing to achieve its intended effects.