The Fall of Gondolin

The story of the greatest Elvish city of the First Age and its destruction by Morgoth's army -- the last of Tolkien's three Great Tales. Christopher Tolkien assembled all versions of the story for this posthumous volume.

Gondolin was the last great hidden stronghold of the Noldorin Elves, and its fall effectively ends the Elves' ability to resist Morgoth directly. Its survivors, including Tuor, Idril, and their son Earendil, go on to change the fate of Middle-earth.

Yes -- the same events, presented in multiple versions from 1916 to the late Silmarillion drafts. The Silmarillion version is compressed; the earliest Lost Tales version is the most vivid and detailed.

Yes -- it is the third and final Great Tale, alongside The Children of Hurin and Beren and Luthien.

An Elvish lord of Gondolin who dies fighting a Balrog to protect the escaping survivors. He later reappears in The Lord of the Rings as a lord of Rivendell -- Tolkien eventually established that he was sent back to Middle-earth by the Valar after his heroic death.

The Fall of Gondolin -- Tolkien read an early version of the tale to the Exeter College Essay Club in 1920, and the prose version in The Book of Lost Tales was the first story in the entire legendarium, begun around 1916.