As C.S. Lewis once wrote about J.R.R. Tolkien, "He is a very great man. His published works (both imaginative & scholarly) ought to fill a shelf by now: but he's one of those people who is never satisfied with a manuscript. The mere suggestion of publication provokes the reply 'Yes. I'll just look through it and give it a few finishing touches' - which means that he really begins the whole thing over again." (The Letters of C.S. Lewis. New York:Harcourt Brace. 1993)

Tolkien has a fantastic number of works, it really is ashamed more of them didn't make it to the publisher in his life time. What Lewis wrote about his friend really is true, the man has so many drafts, the stuff that is publised is nowhere near all of it. It is very unfortunate that most of it is in fairly useless condition for the casual reader, as many people who unknowingly picked up a copy of anything from The Book of Lost Tales through The Peoples of Middle Earth might tell you. He has few works that were truely completed and those that were are true gems.

Skyjedi, why exactly did they block Tolkien's Beowulf from being published? That is really ashame.