A DARKNESS is once again descending on JRR Tolkien's fabled land of Middle Earth. An unfinished work completed by the writer's son is such a departure from the world of hobbits it may merit an X-rating.
The manuscript for The Children of Hurin, to be published next year, contains incest, suicide and a multitude of violent deaths. Any film version is likely to have restricted audiences because of the subject matter.
Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on the epic tale that his father began in 1918 while on army leave. JRR, who was recovering from trench fever contracted during the battle of the Somme, later abandoned the work.
Its publication 90 years on follows the success of The Lord of the Rings, which has sold more than 50 million copies and was adapted into a trilogy of Oscar-winning films directed by Peter Jackson.
The "new" work does not include characters such as the elves Arwen and Legolas. It is much darker and is based on the Kalevala, an epic poem from Finland. Tolkien, who died at 81 in 1973, took the tale and weaved his own story around it.
The Children of Hurin will tell the story of the family of an elf warrior taken prisoner by Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, held responsible for torturing elves and producing the first orcs, a race of evil goblins.
Hurin, the elf warrior, is given powers by Morgoth to foresee what will happen to his children.
"Death you may yet crave from me as a boon," Morgoth tells him.
Editorial Note from Planet-Tolkien: Húrin was a Man, an Edain, an Elf-friend, not an Elf as stated above.
One son, Turin, is manoeuvred into having sex with his sister Nienor and becomes a carrier of doom, triggering the death of everyone close to him.
One Tolkien expert, William Ferguson, said last weekend: "Turin makes folks like Othello and Hamlet and Oedipus look like lucky devils."
Other Tolkien experts welcomed its forthcoming publication. Dorothy Heydt, a writer of fantasy and science fiction, said: "Turin had more grief in his life than anybody ought to.
"The story is based on a Finnish folk tale and is full of incest and suicide and stuff."
Adam Tolkien, son of Christopher, said: "The book will be the equivalent of a director's cut of a DVD, except in this case the director is deceased.
"It is a very educated work. My father has been working on these stories for 30 years.
"What has already been published is a very condensed version of the story. (JRR's) The Silmarillion gives a history of Middle Earth mythology. To give you an idea of the scale, the whole story of The Lord of the Rings takes up 15 pages in The Silmarillion."
Christopher Tolkien is now 81 and The Children of Hurin may be the last "new" book under the JRR Tolkien name. Writers' literary estates lose their entitlement to copyright income 70 years after their death.
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© Maurice Chittenden