The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Volume 2: Reader's Guide

The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide #2

by Christina Scull, Wayne G. Hammond

Designed to be the essential reference works for all readers and students, these volumes present the most thorough analysis possible of Tolkien's work within the important context of his life.
The Reader's Guide includes brief but comprehensive alphabetical entries on a wide range of topics, including a who's who of important persons, a guide to places and institutions, details concerning Tolkien's source material, information about the political and social upheavals through which the author lived, the importance of his social circle, his service as an infantryman in World War I -- even information on the critical reaction to his work and the "Tolkien cult."
The Chronology details the parallel evolutions of Tolkien's works and his academic and personal life in minute detail. Spanning the entirety of his long life including nearly sixty years of active labor on his Middle-earth creations, and drawing on such contemporary sources as school records, war service files, biographies, correspondence, the letters of his close friend C. S. Lewis, and the diaries of W. H. Lewis, this book will be an invaluable resource for those who wish to gain a complete understanding of Tolkien's status as a giant of twentieth-century literature.

Genres: Fantasy, Reference

1024 pages, Hardcover

First published October 2, 2006

About the author

Christina Scull was born in Bristol, England, where she attended the famous Red Maids School. In 1961 she moved to London and worked for ten years in the Board of Trade. In 1971 she received her Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours from Birkbeck College, the University of London, where she studied art history and medieval history. From 1971 to 1995 she was the Librarian of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. In December 1994 she married Wayne Hammond, and in October 1995 emigrated to the United States. Her publications include The Soane Hogarths (1991). She is also the co-author or co-editor with her husband of numerous works by and about J.R.R. Tolkien, and editor of the occasional magazine The Tolkien Collector. In 1992 she was chair of the Tolkien Centenary Conference in Oxford. She has won scholarship awards from the Mythopoeic Society four times.

Reviews

[Michael Joosten · Rating 3 out of 5]

After the Chronology half of the Reader's Guide, the second volume does not seem as full of surprises and wonder, and the encyclopaedic format is not so close to biography as chronology. It is thorough, and contains much useful information--and, not least, serves as an important go-to source for the incipient scholar, but simply because of the breadth of the subject, it cannot but fail to offer less than the reader might want.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing reference guide.