Tolkien and King Arthur

Although I am the sort who re-reads The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings regularly I've never been able to develop much enthusiasm for the rest of Tolkien's fiction including the appendices and compilations of Middle Earth lore. This Arthurian effort, however, intrigues me: "'New' JRR Tolkien epic due out next year."

It's the story of a dark world, of knights and princesses, swords and sorcery, quests and betrayals, and it's from the pen of JRR Tolkien. But this is not Middle-earth, it's ancient Britain, and this previously unpublished work from the Lord of the Rings author stars not Aragorn, Gandalf and Frodo, but King Arthur.

HarperCollins has announced the acquisition of Tolkien's never-before-published poem The Fall of Arthur, which will be released for the first time next May. Running to more than 200 pages, Tolkien's story was inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Thomas Malory's tales of King Arthur, and is told in narrative verse. Set in the last days of Arthur's reign, the poem sees Tolkien tackling the old king's battle to save his country from Mordred the usurper, opening as Arthur and Gawain go to war. ....

John Garth, author of Tolkien and the Great War, said that from the fragments he had seen, the omens looked good. "In The Fall of Arthur, Tolkien depicts Arthur going off to fight the Saxons in Mirkwood – not the Mirkwood of Middle-earth, but the great German forests. Whether it's as good as the best by Tolkien will have to wait on the full publication, but snippets published so far are encouraging, showing him in darkly evocative mode writing about one of the great English villains, Mordred: 'His bed was barren; there black phantoms/ of desire unsated and savage fury/ in his brain brooded till bleak morning.' .... [more]

'New' JRR Tolkien epic due out next year | Books | guardian.co.uk