Charles E. Noad was a programmer,Tolkien scholar, and a long-standing member ofthe Tolkien Society, which he helped to found.
Charles Noad was born in 1947. He worked atImperial College, London as a computer programmer.[1]
ATolkien fan, he was involved in the work ofthe Tolkien Society, which he helped to found, for over 50 years, making him its longest-standing member; he served as its bibliographer and photographer, and belonged to its London local group, theNorthfarthing Smial. The society described his essay "On the Construction ofThe Silmarillion" as "critically important"; it was published in the 2000 scholarly collectionTolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth, edited byVerlyn Flieger andCarl F. Hostetter. His friendship withChristopher Tolkien led to hisproofreading several Middle-earth books includingThe History of Middle-earth.[1]
Several Tolkien scholars knew, corresponded with, and exchanged books with Noad for 40 years or more.Douglas A. Anderson wrote that Noad's "eagle-eye as a proof-reader was legendary."[2]David Bratman described Noad's "On the Construction ofThe Silmarillion" as a "fascinating and well-researched and -argued" essay on whatJ. R. R. Tolkien would probably have done to that book, making it "more heterogeneous" than the volume edited by Christopher Tolkien and published a few months after Noad's essay.[3]John D. Rateliff called Noad "the first fellow Tolkien scholar I met".[4] Rateliff described Noad's influence on Tolkien research as "powerful but subtle", in particular on the 12-volume set ofThe History of Middle-earth. He described Noad's proofreading of Rateliff'sThe History of the Hobbit as "meticulous".[4]
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