THIRTY years after JRR Tolkien's death, a posthumous book by the Lord of the Rings writer is published for the first time today.
The Children of Hurin was "restored" from Tolkien's manuscripts by his youngest son and literary executor, Christopher Tolkein, now 82.
The book's publisher, HarperCollins, says it offers new tales of Tolkien's imaginary world of Middle-Earth fro
m times long before the trilogy The Lord of the Rings.
But it was quickly heading for a literary row yesterday. One leading London reviewer called it "barely readable". Meanwhile, Tolkien fans leapt to the late author's defence, claiming that "elite" critics have always dismissed him.
The Children of Hurin will launch with an initial print run of half a million copies in eight languages.
It arrives on the heels of the three massively successful Lord of the Rings films, directed by Peter Jackson.
The films have nearly doubled sales of the original books, first published in 1954 and 1955, to 150 million world wide.
The new book tells of Túrin and his sister Niënor, cursed by Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, waging war against the lands and the secret cities of the Elves. He sets his wingless dragon Glaurung in pursuit of them.
The story appeared in fragmentary form in The SiImarillion, the first posthumous book by Tolkien, which appeared in 1977. Some critics called that work "sell-a-million".
JRR Tolkien lived from 1892 to 1973. Christopher Tolkien said the original story of Turin dates back to 1918, after which his father continued to work on it throughout his life, but "could not bring it to final and a finished form".
"In this book I have endeavoured to construct, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention," he said.
The book is darker and denser than The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. "It's not Harry Potter," said David Brawn, the publishing director at HarperCollins who handles Tolkien publications. He said that Mr Tolkein, who does not give interviews, wanted to put the spotlight back on his father's writing in the wake of the films. Speculation is swirling over when The Hobbit, first published in 1937, will be filmed, and Hollywood has already come calling for rights to the new book.
"As publishers we've been through the most extraordinary time with the films," Mr Brawn said. "They created this parallel strand of publishing and exploitation, and once we had gone through that we said, 'How do we get people back to the books?'
"One of the things preventing The Children of Hurin being published in recent years is that there will always be a slightly ungracious segment out there saying it is another 'cash-in'," he said. "I hope people don't see it as a cash-in, as that was never the intention when publishing it."
One London critic, Tom Deveson, wrote of the book that "although JRR Tolkien aficionados will be thrilled, others will find The Children of Turin barely readable.
"Fans will doubtless read on with passionate piety, but for others it is an act of painful penitence."
The unfinished classics and their posthumous endingsJANE Austen began her last novel, Sanditon, about six months before her death in 1817. It tells of the visit of Charlotte Heywood to the seaside resort of Sanditon and the characters she meets there. It appears Austen had just finished setting the scene and introducing the characters, tempting a string of authors to try finishing it, beginning with her own niece and running into the late 20th century.
Charles Dickens wrote 23 chapters, or about half of his last work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, before his death in 1870. Speculation as to the identity of Drood's murderer prompted several authors to try to finish the work. A musical comedy of Edwin Drood, in which audiences were invited to vote on which character was guilty, became an international hit after it opened on Broadway in 1985.
The classic detective writer Raymond Chandler began his eighth novel in 1958. The four chapters he finished, titled The Poodle Springs Story, left, began another case for private eye Philip Marlowe. On the centenary of Chandler's birth, the modern crime writer Robert B Parker was commissioned to finish the novel.
Victorian writer Wilkie Collins left his book Blind Love unfinished on his death in 1890. It was completed by historian and novelist Sir Walter Besant.
The full article contains 750 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
