The Shaping of Middle-earth (ISBN 0345400437) is the fourth volume of Christopher Tolkien's 13-volume series The History of Middle-earth, in which he analyzes the unpublished manuscripts of his father J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1986. In it the gradual transition from the "primitive" legendaria of The Book of Lost Tales to what would become The Silmarillion is described, and it contains a text which could be seen as the first "Silmarillion": the "Sketch of the Mythology".