Tolkien's "Beren and Luthien" story will be published next year in a stand-alone format edited by Christopher Tolkien and fully illustrated by Alan Lee. This is per a Harper Collins press release, as reported on Too Many Books, a blog by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, who have written many annotated Tolkien books.
This format should give the story the attention it deserves; to the general public its currently just another part of the often-overlooked Silmarillion.
Apparently the main portion of this book will be the original form of the story as written by Tolkien in 1917 (and published in the Lost Tales), supplemented by material from later versions. I believe the later source text for the Silmarillion chapter has never been published in full, so this book may include be some unpublished material last prose version has never been published in full so there may be some unpublished material included.
Update: Great post by John Garth discussing the possible content of the book.
How timely. I'm in the midst of reading The Silmarillion for the first time--successfully, that is. I've picked it up numerous times over the last 3.5 decades but made little headway until now.
ReplyDeleteGreat. I need to go back & read the whole thing straight through, it's been awhile. Perhaps I'll time it to when this new book comes out.
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