J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide
(Two Volume Box Set) by Wayne G.
Hammond
Pleasant Xmas Gift For A Relation
Designed to be the essential reference works for all readers and students,
these volumes present the most thorough analysis possible of Tolkiens
work within the important context of his life.
The Readers Guide includes brief but comprehensive alphabetical
entries on a wide range of topics, including a whos who of important
persons, a guide to places and institutions, details concerning Tolkiens
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 Tolkiens 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 Tolkiens status as a giant of twentieth-century literature.
Personal Review: J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide (Two
Volume Box Set) by Wayne G. Hammond
This is an enormous work and a stupendous achievement. Christina Scull
and her husband Wayne G. Hammond have created, in two large volumes,
an indispensable compendium for students of JRR Tolkien. Although the
two volumes can be obtained separately, I recommend that both be
purchased, preferably at the same time, so that you can turn from one to
the other as your studies lead you down one fascinating avenue to
countless others.
The Chronology Volume is an amazing achievement. JRR Tolkien's entire
life is chronicled, many times day by day, so that we know what classes he
taught, lectures he gave, conferences he attended, and guests he invited
for dinner throughout a long, active life. This may seem to be
inconsequential minutiae, but all of it is important in revealing the
personality and character of the author and the many sources from which
his own writings sprang. Historians and sociologists will also find this
volume extremely useful since it reveals one man's daily life through three
quarters of the twentieth century.
Equally as impressive is Volume 2, the Reader's Guide. Here Scull and
Hammond have provided a multiplicity of information on every bit of extant
writing by Tolkien, other authors and thinkers with whom he conversed or
otherwise communicated, and so much else that it is impossible to
enumerate it all. Scholars studying other writers besides Tolkien will do
well to consult this volume, since he had contact with so many of them.
As a matter of full disclosure I should reveal that I met Christina Scull some
years ago in London, and I have maintained a friendship with her and with
Wayne ever since. I am honored that an article I wrote for the Tolkien
journal "Beyond Bree" has been referenced in this Reader's Guide. But I
hasten to assure you that I would be just as impressed with this work and
would recommend itjust as highly even if these connections did not exist.
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