Adam Tolkien, grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien states that the Húrin legends, the third great tale of his grandfather’s Middle-earth writing, are for anyone who enjoyed reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings since it allows them once again to take a step back into an ancient land of heroes and vagabonds, honor and jeopardy, hope and tragedy. The finished product is the work of Adam’s father, Christopher Tolkien who has spent the last 30 years painstakingly collecting the pieces of the legend from such works as The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales has completed the story told only in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien who started the masterpiece some 99 years ago. In doing so, Christopher Tolkien has meticulously managed to combine these works into a coherent, vivid and readable narrative that many readers who were hoping for a charming tale such as The Lord of the Rings will find enjoyable, if not uplifting. 

Adam Tolkien states that the earliest versions of The Children of Hurin date back to the end of the First World War, and were to become the dominant story in his grandfather’s later work on Middle-earth. Tolkien further adds that by being published now instead of when The Lord of the Rings came out it can now be appreciated in its own right.  

The story deals with a hero of the First Age, Húrin, of the race of Men, who is cursed by the Dark Lord Morgoth for having defied Morgoth to his face. The story centers around the effect this curse has on his children Túrin Turambar and Nienor who find themselves caught up in a great war between the immortal Elves and Morgoth, the first Dark Lord. Within the adventure, one finds tales of brutal conquest and escape, of pursuit and resistance and of a huge wingless dragon of fire,  

The Children of Húrin takes the reader back to a time long before The Lord of the Rings, in an area of Middle-earth that was to be drowned before Hobbits appeared, and when the great enemy was still Morgoth. The story is dark and gloomy, with much less of a positive ending than The Lord of the Rings, however, the children of Húrin can be thought inspiring as they are brave, even though at times a bit rash. Morgoth’s traps, however, are subtle and he can trick the siblings into doing wrong things. Both the Elves and the Petty-dwarves (Petty-dwarves were smaller, far more unsociable, and freely gave away their names while other Dwarves kept their Khuzdul names and language a secret which may be why the Petty Dwarves exiled). Another note is that this story includes much more sinister characters than the noble Elves and Dwarves of The Lord of the Rings which might cause parents to want to use some caution regarding the age of the children reading this tale.   

Remarkably, however, considering that the earliest passages in The Children of Húrin are 90 years old, Christopher’s reworking of the book works brilliantly as he seems to take the best available parts from The Silmarillion, and The Lord of the Rings and assembled them into a long version of the story. The illustrations in the book are created by artist, Alan Lee who was commissioned in 1990 to create the first-ever illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings and has created some remarkable new paintings and pencil drawings for the book.  Overall, it is a definite testament to Christopher Tolkien’s skill as an editor that he has been able to take his father’s thoughts and words to construct a complete narrative without resorting to writing anything new[tags]J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien, Adam Tolkien, The Children of Hurin, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Alan Lee, fiction,The Silmarillion,Morgoth, Dwarves, elves, Middle Earth, Dark Lords, dragons[/tags]