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Tolkien tale completed by his son

Paul Lewis

AN UNFINISHED tale abandoned by J.R.R. Tolkien in 1918 has been completed by his son and will be published next spring, it was announced on Monday.

Christopher Tolkien has worked for 30 years on an edited version of The Children of Hurin, a story set in the legendary land of elves, hobbits, and dwarves depicted by his father in the epic trilogy The Lord Of The Rings.

In a statement issued through the publishers Houghton Mifflin in the U.S. and HarperCollins in the U.K., he 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 Hurin as an independent work, between its own covers."

Extracts from the original tale, said to be a detailed but staccato account of the family of Hurin, the man who dared defy Melkor in the first age, have already been published — illuminating, Tolkien enthusiasts say, some of the oldest tales of the legendary land of Middle Earth.

The announcement could cause controversy amongst the many fans of the so-called "father of modern fantasy literature," however. Tolkien's readers have often searched for narrative links between the interwoven tales, which he called a "legendarium."

Christopher Tolkien has been responsible for illuminating his father's fictional histories by compiling works from his notes. One of the author's three surviving children, and the owner of the rights to his fathers literary legacy, he sparked controversy three years ago by objecting to the Academy Award-winning trio of films of The Lord of the Rings.

He said he was unhappy with the way the film-makers had interpreted his father's work.

- Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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