Tolkien’s Norse Epic

J. R. R. TolkienFrom theBookSeller comes word of a new Tolkien story, the retelling of a Norse epic in English narrative verse:

HarperCollins is to publish a new book by the late Lord of the Rings author J R R Tolkien. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, edited and introduced by Tolkien’s son Christopher, will be published in hardback in May 2009.

The previously unpublished work was written while Tolkien was professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University during the 1920s and ’30s, before he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The publication will make available for the first time Tolkien’s extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigurd the Völsung and the Fall of the Niflungs.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the link and Diana Glyer for the head’s up.]