"Thank you for using the official Tolkien website from HarperCollins. Since the release of The Children of Hurin in April 2007 the site has had nearly a million visitors, and has enabled us to bring the unique deluxe edition of the book to the public last December. Now however we want to go further and give you more.

In November we will be launching a new Tolkien store which will sell all of the Tolkien books published by HarperCollins, plus an ongoing series of unique new collectors editions.

We will be launching with an exclusive 500 copy set of a £60 deluxe edition of the new Tales from a Perilous Realm, signed by Alan Lee, which we will release further details about in the next week.

We will also be making our incredible 500 copy signed edition of The Children of Hurin available to American readers for the first time. Again - more details to follow in the next week.

Making these changes will take a little time and you'll see some differences whilst we do the work.

The current site will be taken out of service this week.

The forum will be moving to a new URL then: http://www.tolkienforum.co.uk - so please update your bookmarks. All registration details however will remain the same, and the postings on the site will be up-to-date with those in place when the site was switched off.

The gallery section will be taken out of operation. We will look to reintroduce this later however with some great Tolkien prizes up for grabs for the best imagery.

All of the marketing information from the launch of The Children of Hurin will disappear as well.

What will come in its place will be the first step towards what we hope will become a very exciting offering for Tolkien lovers: we're planning a longterm commitment to exclusive Tolkien books we hope you'll love in the months and years ahead."

wellinghall