In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Dwarves are a race inhabiting Middle-earth, the central continent of a fictional prehistoric Earth. They are based on the dwarfs of Germanic mythology: small humanoids that dwell in mountains, and are associated with mining, metal-craft and jewelry. They appear in his books The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), the posthumously published The Silmarillion (1977), Unfinished Tales (1980), and The History of Middle-earth series (1983–96), the last three edited by his son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien.