An unfinished tale by J.R.R. Tolkien has been edited by his son into a completed work and will be released next spring, the U.S. and British publishers announced Monday.

Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on The Children of Hurin, an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of The Children of Hurin, which includes the elves and dwarves of Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings and other works, have been published before.

"It has seemed to me for a long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long version of the legend of the `Children of Hurin' as an independent work, between its own covers," Christopher Tolkien said in a statement.

The new book will be published by Houghton Mifflin in the United States and HarperCollins in England.

Dont't forget to also check out: The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord Of The Rings: The Return of The King