The first complete book by J. R. R. Tolkien since the posthumous publication of “Silmarillion” in 1977 will be published next week by Houghton Mifflin. Tolkien, the author of “The Hobbit” and the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, began “The Children of Húrin” in 1918 but never finished it. Christopher Tolkien, 82, the author’s son, edited the book from several drafts. Mr. Tolkien has also added hand-drawn maps and genealogy tables to the tale, whose story takes place thousands of years before “The Lord of the Rings.” Houghton Mifflin plans an initial printing run of 250,000 copies.

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Remarkably, considering that the earliest passages in The Children of Húrin are 90 years old, Christopher's reworking of the book works brilliantly. In a sense it is not a new book, for versions and pieces of the story will be familiar to some readers. For example, the whole tale was condensed down into a single chapter in The Silmarillion, as was the story of The Lord of the Rings at the end of that book, so what you have here is the reconstructed version, complete with familiar elements and also passages that have never appeared before. (It might be compared to a sort of literary Director's Cut, the long version of the story assembled from all the best footage available, though my father probably wouldn't welcome the filmmaking comparison!)

Before ‘Lord of the Rings’