The estate of JRR Tolkien, which is based in Summertown, has signed a deal with HarperCollins to publish the author’s translation of Beowulf.

The book will be published in May and has been edited by Tolkien’s son Christopher.

Tolkien, who also wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings, completed the translation in 1926.

It will be accompanied by a commentary on the text in the form of a series of lectures he gave when he was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College in the 1930s.