New Tolkien book released 100 years after it was written
A new novel by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien has been published 100 years after it was first written.
Prompted in part by the horrors Tolkien witnessed in World War I, the novel, Beren and Luthien, follows the fate of two characters (a mortal man and an immortal elf), taken from Tolkien's fictional world, Middle Earth.
The book was edited by Tolkien’s son Christopher Tolkien, who is now 92. The book contains versions of a tale that became part of The Silmarillion.
The British author felt compelled to write the book after returning from France in 1916.
Tolkien scholar John Garth said the book served as a “exorcism" of the horrific experiences on the battlefields of WWI.
"When he came back from the trenches, with trench fever, he spent the winter [of 1916-1917] convalescing," Mr Garth told the BBC.
"He'd lost two of his dearest friends on the Somme and you can imagine he must have been inside as much of a wreck as he was physically."
The names Beren and Lúthien are carved on Tolkien’s gravestone in Wolvercote cemetery in Oxford.