Expect to hear the patter of huge, hairy feet heading towards the nation’s bookshops on April 17 – the release date for the first complete book by J R R Tolkien since The Silmarillion was published in 1977.

An estimated 15 million people in the UK alone saw the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy and publisher HarperCollins is hoping that The Children of Hurin will tap into that fanbase. More than 200,000 books have been produced in the first print run.

“We’ve already got paper lined up for reprints,” a hopeful HarperCollins spokesman added.

J R R Tolkien died in 1973. The novel has been assembled from Tolkien’s drafts by his son Christopher and features sketches and paintings by Hobbit and Lord of the Rings illustrator Alan Lee.

Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on The Children of Hurin, an epic tale that his father began in 1918 but later abandoned. Excerpts of the work, which features the elves and dwarves from Tolkien’s masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, 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 book will cost £18.99 in hardback with a £60 delux edition.

An all-day event at Waterstone’s in Piccadilly, central London, will launch the book, featuring Lord of the Rings actor Bernard Hill reading extracts and an appearance by grandson Adam Tolkien. Events around the country will also include signings by Lee.

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