The OtherArena

[jdw]

The Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins made this release in the past week:

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22 Sep 2006

J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Children of Húrin to be published in 2007

In a world rights deal, the Tolkien Estate has signed with HarperCollins to publish the first complete book by J.R.R. Tolkien since the posthumous Silmarillion in 1977. Presented for the first time as a fully continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of The Children of Húrin will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, and the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien.

The Children of Húrin, begun in 1918, was one of three 'Great Tales' J.R.R. Tolkien worked on throughout his life, though he never realised his ambition to see it published. Though familiar to many fans from extracts and references within other Tolkien books, it has long been assumed that the story would forever remain an 'unfinished tale'. Now reconstructed by Christopher Tolkien, painstakingly editing together the complete work from his father's many drafts, this book is the culmination of a tireless thirty-year endeavour by him to bring J.R.R. Tolkien's vast body of unpublished work to a wide audience.

Christopher Tolkien said: "It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the Children of Húrin as an independent work, between its own covers, with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all in continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions, if this could be done without distortion or invention, despite the unfinished state in which he left some parts of it."

Having drawn the distinctive maps for the original The Lord of the Rings more than 50 years ago, Christopher has also created a detailed new map for this book. In addition, it will include a jacket and colour paintings by Alan Lee, illustrator of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Centenary Edition and Oscar®-winning designer of the film trilogy.

The Lord of the Rings was already acclaimed worldwide as the most popular book of the 20th Century before the blockbuster films in 2001-3 broke new ground and inspired millions more to read J.R.R. Tolkien's books - an additional 50 million copies were sold, leaving new fans wanting more. The Children of Húrin will be published by HarperCollins in April 2007, and on the same day in the United States by Houghton Mifflin.

Victoria Barnsley, CEO and Publisher of HarperCollins Publishers, said: "This epic story of adventure, tragedy, fellowship and heroism stands as one of the finest expressions of J.R.R. Tolkien's skills as a storyteller. With a narrative as dramatic and powerful as anything contained within The Lord of the Rings, it can now be read and enjoyed as Tolkien originally intended, and will doubtless be a revelation for millions of fans around the world."

[jdw]

A Time Magazine (UK) article on it:

The Return of the King

The Tolkien Estate appears to be working on a new website, and their blub on it (on the front page currently) is probably one of the more straightforward one I've seen:

The Tolkien Estate

Straightfoward in the sense of what's going into the new book. I do wish they were a bit more specific - that what is being used to assemble "the multiple variants, unfinished pieces, and outlines of the tale to produce a standalone and complete version" are materials that have largely been published already in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the History of Middle-earth books. Especially Unfinished Tales where the rn i Chîn Húrin was published.

The TolkienLibary.com has two good articles providing more details:

"The Lay of the Children of Húrin" completed and edited by C. Tolkien will be published spring 2007

The Children of Húrin - More detailed info

It gives good detail on the variations that have been published over the years of this always unfinshed tale of JRRT's.


John

[JL Sigman]

I just finished this yesterday... unfortunately, it feels very incomplete, since most of the sub-characters are given a name and not much else. I understand Christopher didn't want to add anything, but I think a good author could have taken the notes and fleshed it out a bit more.

[RL]

Brian Herbert IS ON IT.

:)

~rl