Jrr Tolkien, who is known throughout the world as the sole creator of such books as "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" series has made yet another publication after his death. This book is titled "Beren and Lúthien" (Bear-een and Looth-ee-in) and it holds a love story between a mortal man and an immortal elf woman. The story was first cultivated in 1917 and is a personal story paralleling Tolkien's life. It was published on June 1st, which was the 10th anniversary of the last book pertaining to Tolkien's fantasy world, Middle Earth, which is the land where the events of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings take place, among a few other and lesser-known books.
How the story came to be
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was a man that spent most of his life in England. He was a linguistic prodigy in his youth and enjoyed the art of reading and writing. He met his wife, Edith, before he was 21 and they married shortly before he was enlisted in the army for World War 1. For 4 months, he fought in the trenches in France and eventually succumbed to trench fever and was sent back home to recover from the disease. After about a month, he recovered. It was at this point in his life that he began writing stories that took place in Middle Earth, including Beren and Lúthien.
A hundred years in the making
The story of Beren and Lúthien was inspired by the love he possessed for Edith, but also by the loss of some of his close friends to the war.
In his grievances, he began writing tales and stories that were not of the world that we all live in. It was his coping mechanism, and by 1917, the story of Beren and Lúthien was complete. There have been variations of the story's telling. The tale appears in The Silmarillion, which many call "the Bible of Middle Earth." It tells various stories and myths that take place thousands of years before the events of The Hobbit.
Beren and Lúthien
Because the main plot of Beren and Lúthien is inspired by Tolkien and his wife, the story ended up being an open window into their marriage and a close-up view of the love that each held for the other. One of the key scenes from the book, which describes Beren looking out from a forest to see Lúthien dancing in the moonlight, was directly inspired by JRR seeing his wife dancing in a similar environment.
Christopher Tolkien, the son of JRR, made the finishing touches on the story to make it ready for release. He kept the story in its original form, which had been preserved for an entire century. JRR and Edith Tolkien share a grave in the northern suburbs of Oxford, England. The stone has the name "Lúthien" underneath Edith's, and "Beren" underneath JRR's.
