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Kullervo, son of Kalervo, is perhaps the darkest and most tragic of all J. R. R. Tolkien's characters. "Hapless Kullervo, " as Tolkien called him, is a luckless orphan boy with supernatural powers and a tragic destiny. Brought up in the homestead of the dark magician Untamo, who killed his father, kidnapped his mother, and tried three times to kill him when he was still a boy, Kullervo is alone save for the love of his twin sister, Wanona, and the magical powers of the black dog Musti, who guards him. When Kullervo is sold into slavery he swears revenge on the magician, but he will learn that even at the point of vengeance there is no escape from the cruelest of fates. Tolkien himself said that The Story of Kullervo was "the germ of my attempt to write legends of my own, " and was "a major matter in the legends of the First Age. " Tolkien's Kullervo is the clear ancestor of Trin Turambar, tragic incestuous hero of The Silmarillion. Published here for the first time with the author's drafts, notes, and lecture essays on its source work, the Kalevala, The Story of Kullervo is a foundation stone in the structure of Tolkien's invented world. From our buyer, Margaret Terwey: This is the first publication of a previously unknown work of fantasy by J. R. R. Tolkien. Die-hard fans Tolkien fans will be particularly interested in his notes on the story, mapping out alternate endings and plot points and revealing the beginnings of a dark mythical vision that became The Lord of the Rings a couple decades later.