Feb 18 2009
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt to publish previously unreleased Tolkien novel
A previously unpublished J. R. Tolkien novel, titled The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, as been acquired by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt according to Publishers Weekly:
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has acquired a previously unpublished work by J.R.R. Tolkien, written while Tolkien was a professor at Oxford during the 1920s and ’30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The house will publish The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in the U.S. and worldwide on May 5. The publication will mark the first extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigúrd the Völsung and The Fall of the Niflungs. The book will include an introduction by Tolkien, drawn from one of his lectures on Norse literature, with commentary, notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien. Ken Carpenter acquired U.S. hard and soft rights for HMH from HarperCollins UK.
Jackpot! I bet this book will do really well… There are a heck of a lot of Tolkien fans out there! I’m not really a big fan myself, but this story sounds even more interesting than Lord of the Rings! I’ll definitely be curious to see how it goes. Who knows, maybe there will be a movie to follow?
Wow. That sounds very cool. I wonder why it took so long to publish this? Tolkien has been gone for a long time.
my youngest will be thrilled