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The Children of Hurin cover art

The Children of Hurin

By: J. R. R. Tolkien
Narrated by: Christopher Lee
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Publisher's Summary

There are tales of Middle-earth from times long before The Lord of the Rings. The story told in this book is set in the great country that lay beyond the Grey Havens in the West: lands where Treebeard once walked, but which were drowned in the great cataclysm that ended the First Age of the World.

In that remote time, Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in the vast fortress of Angband, the Hells of Iron, in the North; and the tragedy of Túrin and his sister Nienor unfolded within the shadow of the fear of Angband and the war waged by Morgoth against the lands and secret cities of the Elves. Their brief and passionate lives were dominated by the elemental hatred that Morgoth bore them as the children of Húrin, the man who had dared to defy and to scorn him to his face. Against them he sent his most formidable servant, Glaurung, a powerful spirit in the form of a huge wingless dragon of fire.

Into this story of brutal conquest and flight, of forest hiding-places and pursuit, of resistance with lessening hope, the Dark Lord and the Dragon enter in direly articulate form. Sardonic and mocking, Glaurung manipulated the fates of Túrin and Nienor by lies of diabolic cunning and guile, and the curse of Morgoth was fulfilled.

The earliest versions of this Tolkien story go back to the end of the First World War and the years that followed. But long afterwards, when The Lord of the Rings was finished, he revised and greatly enlarged it, enhancing complexities of motive and character. It became the dominant story in his later work on Middle-earth. But he could not bring it to a final and finished form. In this book, Christopher Tolkien has constructed, after long study of the manuscripts, a coherent narrative without any editorial invention.

©2007 J. R. R. Tolkien Copyright Trust and Christopher Reuel Tolkien (P)2007 HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, London, UK

What listeners say about The Children of Hurin

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A valuable experience

Fantastic insight to the LOTR mythology after being in love with the films for so long, and just reading the trilogy and craving more. Sir Christopher Lee is such a treasure, and I am grateful to have had such a storied human read such a storied tale from J.R.R Tolkien about this world I continue to love. The tragedy that is this story is very impactful and resonated more than any book I have read so far. Thank you to all who worked on this project.

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6 people found this helpful

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Authentically Tolkien

I loved Christopher Lee's performance of The Children of Hurin - it was so authentically Tolkien. It's not always the most riveting of Middle-Earth stories, but still a valuable addition to the prequel canon.

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Narn I hin Húrin

Brilliant story. Christopher Lee: a better reader and lay teller of Tolkien I have not heard. Tragic that this is the only Tolkien he performed. Probably the best performance of an audio book ever

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Brilliant

Perfectly read, great story, if you love lord of the rings or the hobbit, it's a must have for any fan

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Best narration I've ever heard, RIP

Christopher Lee nails the tone of the prose, bravo. Basically like having Saruman from the film version tell you an epic and tragic tale

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A Great Tale Indeed

Who better to read aloud this "longest of the lays of Beleriand" than Sir Christopher Lee. Wonderful, awful, totally addictive.

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More epic lore from Middle Earth

As a fan of Tolkien's Middle Earth Lore, I thoroughly enjoyed the reading of the longest 'Lay of Beleriand' by none other than Sauruman (Christopher Lee) from the 'Lord of the Rings' movie trilogy!

Christopher's narration is evocative of a lore master teaching classical history, although others could potentially find it monotonous & joyless

The use of a short musical melody to separate chapters adds an appropriate grand ambience fitting of this epic piece of Middle Earth lore.

I recommend this audiobook to Middle Earth fans who enjoyed reading the appendices of the 'Lord of the Rings' or 'the Silmarillion'.

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Tolkien’s great tragic tale, beautifully read

Performance: Christopher Lee’s marvellous voice makes this audiobook a true delight, despite the grim tale it tells. His narration is at times a touch over-dramatic, but you can tell he cares about the material, and he attends carefully to all of Tolkien’s invented names and phrases.

Production: The audiobook contains only the story, not any of the additional notes or background material. This is understandable for an audiobook, but the loss of material that helps orient the reader (listener) will make the story more confusing to newcomers. Also, the segmentation into chapters is incorrect, with each audio “chapter” spanning several chapters of the book, making navigation more difficult than it needs to be. Additional audio is minimal (musical cues between chapters), but effective.

Story: This is the longest of J. R. R. Tolkien’s “great tales” from the Elder Days—and the only one to be presented as one cohesive narrative in its stand-alone publication, unlike Beren and Lúthien or The Fall of Gondolin. As a tragedy (and a fairly bleak one at that), it can be hard going at times, and this is compounded by sections that don’t feel quite as polished and well-paced as others… perhaps because it was never brought to this complete form by the author himself. It helps if you already know the outline of the tale from the briefer version published in The Silmarillion.

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Annoying voice

Was very disappointed with Christopher Lees’ speaking this book.
He was so boring I couldn’t get into it and only got annoyed. Will never finish book. I will need to read book to finsh

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Pretty decent

It was pretty good if you like this sort of stuff. although I had to do some Google searching to get my head around the different characters and places.

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