The tale of Beren and Lúthien, meticulously restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, reconnects fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs, and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien's Middle-earth.

The story of Beren and Lúthien had been or became an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths, and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the story the following year.

A central element of the story, which never changed, is the fate that overshadowed the love of Beren and Lúthien: for Beren was a mortal man, while Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elven lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he had to perform before he could wed Lúthien. This is the core of the legend and leads to the intensely heroic attempt of Beren and Lúthien to steal a Silmaril from the greatest of all evils, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy.

In this book, Christopher Tolkien attempted to extract the story of Beren and Lúthien from the broader work in which it was embedded. But this story was evolving as new associations developed within the wider story. To show something of the process by which this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he told the story in his father's words, first giving its foundational form and then excerpts in prose and verse from later texts that depict the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in events and narrative immediacy, that were later lost.

Pages: 288, Dimensions: 14.9x14.9cm