Publisher HarperCollins has announced that it is to publish J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth love story Beren and Lúthien in May 2017, some 100 years after Tolkien first penned the tale, and on the tenth anniversary of the most recent Middle-earth book, The Children of Húrin.
The book, which will be edited by Christopher Tolkien with illustrations from Alan Lee, will feature material featuring the mortal man Beren and the elf maiden Lúthien, two star-crossed lovers in the First Age of Middle-earth. A version of their story features in The Silmarilion, and is also recounted by Aragorn in The Fellowship of the Ring.
The story of Beren and Lúthien underwent numerous revisions throughout Tolkien’s life, and the new book will see Christopher Tolkien telling “the story in his father’s own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed.”
