Another of JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth stories has been published by his son, and it turns out it is the final one too.
Christopher Tolkien has previously edited his father’s works such as The Children of Húrin and The Silmarillion.
However, he admitted that “The Fall of Gondolin is indubitably the last” of Tolkien senior’s writings that he will publish in this form (via Entertainment Weekly), though the door apparently remains open for the future.
Gondolin is set many many years before the events of The Lord of the Rings and focuses on a man named Tuor, who is sent by a sea god to find the hidden Elvish city of Gondolin. While he finds it, it’s attacked by the dark lord Morgoth with Balrogs, dragons and orcs.
Interestingly, it was the first story that the famed author committed to paper of his fantasy world, so it seems fitting that it is the last published.
“I think working on these books gives [Christopher] a new lease on life,” illustrator Alan Lee, who worked on the book and Peter Jackson’s film adaptations, said. “He threw himself straight into Fall of Gondolin.
“We didn’t actually know about it until this time last year there was a potential other one. I’m sure he’ll be happy to have those books in his hand. This particular journey is completed.”
He added: “What makes The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings work as well as they do is that they are set into this cultural background with its own history and languages. You get so much more from those particular stories if you actually delve back and enjoy the mythology of Middle-earth.
“In that process of the myths changing and developing, you get all these echoes of the earlier stories running through the later ones. It makes the whole thing richer and more satisfying and more dense.”
Meanwhile, a new Lord of the Rings TV adaptation set in Middle-earth is set to move ahead on Amazon. And it’s going to cost a hell of a lot of money.
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