In just a few days. J.R.R. Tolkien fans can get their hands on what might be the late author’s final work.
The Fall of Gondolin will be published Aug. 30 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the US and HarperCollins in the UK.
J.R.R. Tolkien died in 1973, but since his death, his son Christopher, now 93, has edited a number of his father’s works, including this one.
The book tells of the founding of the Elven city of Gondolin, and is considered one of Tolkien’s Lost Tales. A section in 1977’s The Silmarillion was based on the Lost Tales.
The Fall of Gondolin follows another posthumously published Lost Tale, The Tale of Beren and Lúthien, which came out in 2017.
At the time, many expected that book to be J.R.R. Tolkien’s final published work. Christopher Tolkien even wrote in its preface that it was ‘(presumptively) my last book in the long series of my father’s writings.’ But now, Entertainment Weekly reports, Christopher Tolkien has written that ‘The Fall of Gondolin is indubitably the last.’
J.R.R. Tolkien is believed to have started writing the story in 1917 while recovering from trench fever he contracted during World War I. He wrote several versions of it before abandoning it in 1951, and his son has gathered those versions together in the book.
One scene in particular might seem familiar to fans of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series. Possible spoiler ahead.
A mountainside fight between an Elf warrior and a Balrog will remind some of a similar battle involving Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring.
The book is illustrated by Alan Lee, who has illustrated numerous Tolkien books, and along with Grant Major and Dan Hennah won an Oscar for best art direction for the 2003 film, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
Even if this is the last ‘new’ book to bear J.R.R. Tolkien’s name, the fantasy author keeps making headlines. His classic Lord of the Rings series is being made into a streaming series for Amazon.