Painstakingly restored from Tolkien`s manuscripts & presented for the first time as a continuous & standalone story, the epic tale of Beren & Luthien will reunite fans of The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings with Elves & Men, Dwarves & Orcs & the rich landscape & creatures unique to Tolkien`s Middle-earth. The tale of Beren & Luthien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths & legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France & the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year. Essential to the story, & never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren & Luthien: for Beren was a mortal man, but Luthien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed Luthien. This is the kernel of the legend; & it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren & Luthien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril. In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren & Luthien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father`s own words by giving, first, its original form, & then passages in prose & 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 & in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.