 Cover of the first edition | |
| Author | Wayne G. Hammond andChristina Scull |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | J. R. R. Tolkien |
| Language | English |
| Subject | The Lord of the Rings |
| Genre | Non-fiction;Literary history;Literary analysis |
| Publisher | HarperCollins (UK) Houghton Mifflin (US) |
Publication date | December 27, 2005 |
| Pages | 894 + lxxxii (hardcover) 976 (paperback) |
| ISBN | 0-00-720308-X (UK hardcover) 0-00-720907-X ( UK paperback) 0-618-64267-6 (US hardcover) |
| OCLC | 61687696 |
| 823/.912 22 | |
| LC Class | PR6039.O32 L6338 2005 |
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (2005) is a nonfiction book by the scholarsWayne G. Hammond andChristina Scull. It is an annotated reference toJ. R. R. Tolkien's heroic romance,The Lord of the Rings.
TheReader's Companion was designed to accompany the revised one-volume 50th anniversary edition ofThe Lord of the Rings (Houghton Mifflin, 2004;ISBN 0-618-51765-0). It is available in both hardcover and paperback, and not to be confused with Hammond and Scull's similarly named 2006 reference bookThe J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide.
Scholars and critics have welcomed the book as providing inside information on the construction ofThe Lord of the Rings. InDavid Bratman's view, it succeeds admirably as an annotated edition. Laura Schmidt describes the existence of a single affordable volume with so much reference information as remarkable.
Hammond and Scull proceed chapter-by-chapter from the original foreword through to the end ofThe Lord of the Rings. Appendices, examining the evolution of the text, changes, inconsistencies, and errors, often using comments from Tolkien's own notes and letters. Other sections cover the numerous maps of Middle-earth, chronologies of the story and its writing, and notes on the book and jacket design of the first editions of 1954–1955.
The book includes some previously unpublished material by Tolkien. It reprints part of a 1951 letter in which Tolkien explains, at some length, his conception and vision ofThe Lord of the Rings.
Reprinted for the first time since 1980, and corrected and expanded, is Tolkien's "Nomenclature ofThe Lord of the Rings" (previously referred to as "Guide to the Names inThe Lord of the Rings"), an index of persons, places, and things designed to aid translators in rendering Tolkien's work into foreign languages.
David Bratman, reviewing the work forTolkien Studies, described it as "simply ... anAnnotated Lord of the Rings that for reasons of space omits the text of the work being discussed", by contrast withDouglas A. Anderson'sThe Annotated Hobbit. He notes that the omission makes keying the notes to the text difficult: page numbers are given for the three-volumeAllen and Unwin 1954-1955 edition, and theHarperCollins/Houghton Mifflin one-volume 2004 edition. Since many readers have neither of those, it also provides the first words of every cited paragraph, which in his view is at least workable. As an annotated edition, it succeeds "admirably", Bratman writes, in documenting many words and phrases "worthy of specific relevant commentary", and in providing a scholar capable of doing such a task justice. He notes that at 900 pages "of small type" it is similar in length to the text, while the comments range from brief glosses to "a five-page essay" on the Elf-ladyGaladriel, which he calls "by itself a major essay on the subject".[1]
Laura Schmidt, reviewing the book forVII, writes that the husband and wife scholarship team of Hammond and Scull offer inside information on howThe Lord of the Rings was constructed through many stages, and assist with difficult passages. They note that although there are many other Tolkien references, having all the information in one affordable volume is "remarkable", and that it well complements Christopher Tolkien's 12-volumeHistory of Middle-earth and the 50th anniversary edition ofThe Lord of the Rings.[2]
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion won the 2006Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies.[3]
