Beren and Lúthien

J. R. R. Tolkien

Apr 2020 · HarperCollins · Narrated by Timothy West and Samuel West

About this audiobook

Presented for the first time on audio, the epic tale of Beren and Lúthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves, Men and Orcs and the rich landscape unique to Tolkien’s Middle-earth in this unabridged recording read by critically acclaimed father and son, Timothy and Samuel West.

Beren was a mortal man, but Lúthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, was deeply opposed to Beren, and imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Lúthien.

Undaunted by Lord Thingol’s challenge, Beren and Lúthien embark on the supremely heroic attempt to rob Morgoth, the greatest of all evil beings, of a Silmaril, one of the hallowed jewels that adorn the Black Enemy’s crown.

The tale of Beren and Lúthien, which was written shortly after J.R.R. Tolkien returned from the Battle of the Somme in 1916, was an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion. In this book Christopher Tolkien has extracted the various versions of Beren and Lúthien from the comprehensive work in which they are embedded.

To show something of the process whereby this Great Tale of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he tells the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.

Ratings and reviews

What this isn't: This isn't a story. If you are expecting a "Children of Hurin" like approach to the Beren and Luthien tale, you will be sadly disappointed. What this is: This is Tolien's son Christopher talking about a bunch of his dad's notes about the Beren and Luthien tale. Most of these notes Chris goes over, Tolkien eventually matures from, to the story of Beren and Luthien we are more familiar with in the Silmarillion. Why we needed an entire new 'book' to bring these (often silly) notes to light, is beyond me. As hard as Christopher works at trying to get something tangible out of his efforts, I can't help but feel like he is putting this together more out of sentimental reasons. This ends up being 6+ hours of references to material that Tolkien eventually abandoned. Why do we need this disjointed, often disconnected discussion of earlier versions of the Beren and Luthien tale? I have no idea. With so much material being hinted at, I am at a loss why he wouldn't write (or commission to be written) an actual in-depth telling of the Beren and Luthien story, like he did with The Children of Hurin (which was excellent). I am a huge Tolkien fan. I love deep-diving into the world. I have read most of what has been published about it. Needless-to-say, I was expecting... something from this book. And something is exactly what I didn't get from it.

the greatest love story ever writen.

About the author

J.R.R.Tolkien (1892-1973) was a distinguished academic, though he is best known for writing The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, plus other stories and essays. His books have been translated into over 60 languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide.