100 years on, Tolkien’s new book published

A new book by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien is going on sale 100 years after it was first conceived. Beren and Lúthien has been described as a “very personal story” that the Oxford professor thought up after returning from the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

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The story is about the fate of lovers, Beren and Luthien, a mortal man and an immortal elf, who together try to steal from the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor.

It was edited by his son Christopher Tolkien, 92, and contains versions of a tale that became part of The Silmarillion. The book features illustrations by Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for his work on Peter Jackson’s film trilogy.

It is being published by HarperCollins on the 10th anniversary of the last Middle Earth book, The Children of Hurin. Tolkien specialist John Garth, who wrote Tolkien And The Great War, said the Hobbit author used his writing like an “exorcism” of the horrors he witnessed in the First World War. — IANS