An early verse work by J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun,” will be published by Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt in May. This would be (I assume) a version of the Volsung/Nibelung Saga, the old Germanic Epic that inspired Wagner, but also popular with the Icelanders.
(Thanks to Aitchmark for the tip.)
Saving your pardon, proud sons of the North, but this sounds like barrel-scraping of the most shameless sort. Posthumous publication of juvenilia will do the man’s legacy no favours.
Soon to be published: Tolkien’s grocery lists!
You may be right, but considering this is Tolkien, I’m not sure works written in his twenties should necessarily be classed as “juvenalia.” In the field of Germanic languages, he was considered a prodigy (if I remember rightly).
I found Tolkien’s rare book “Arithmetic Sums Grade 2” quite enthralling.
Man, he stunk at Math as a kid.
IIRC, Tolkien was a perfectionist. What he considered juvenilia may well be worth reading.