JRR Tolkien may have diminished to the West, but he remains Galadriel. Now, 275 years after his death, a new Middle Earth book, written by JRR himself, is coming out. I like to imagine L Ron Hubbard and VC Andrews welcoming the old man into the Posthumous Authors Club together.
The book will be The Children of Hurin, an epic work Tolkien began in 1918 and abandoned. Tolkien’s son, Christopher, spent the last 30 years piecing it together, mainly because he didn’t have to work and you need to fill the days somehow.
"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," Christopher Tolkien said. I wonder if the case has anything to do with The Lord of the Rings’ eventual slipping into public domain.
The Children of Hurin will be released next year and will likely be optioned for a movie immediately. The hardcover edition will be released with a brand new Tupac Shakur track.