The Children of Húrin
- 313
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“The Children of Húrin” is Tolkien at his most tragic and most archaic, a doomed hero’s tale told in the manner of old myth. Admirers of his legends get the story of Túrin and Nienor complete in one fairly short volume; others find the elevated, chronicle-like telling distant, and some doubt it would win over a newcomer. It serves those who wanted more of Middle-earth’s past after “The Lord of the Rings”.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Children of Húrin is a 2007 epic fantasy novel by J. R. R. Tolkien. He wrote the original version of the story in the late 1910s, revising it several times later, but did not complete it before his death in 1973. His son, Christopher Tolkien, edited the manuscripts to form a consistent narrative, and published it in 2007 as an independent work. The book is illustrated by Alan Lee. The story is one of the three "Great Tales" set in the First Age of Tolkien's Middle-earth, the other two being Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin. All three stories are briefly summarised in the 1977 book The Silmarillion.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.8 across 342 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 70% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Fantasy average of 8.0. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.1 | 38 | 11% |
| Hardcover | 7.7 | 304 | 89% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Children of Húrin?
It has 313 pages — shorter than 93% of the ranked books in Fantasy.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Fantasy — and a score of 7.8, the closest to this book.
