 Dust jacket of 1978 edition | |
| Author | Robert Foster |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | TheBrothers Hildebrandt |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Tolkien's legendarium |
| Genre | Reference |
| Publisher | Ballantine Books |
Publication date | 1978 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback &Paperback) |
| Pages | 573 pp |
| ISBN | 0-345-44976-2 (2001 edition) |
| OCLC | 48541956 |
| Preceded by | A Guide to Middle-earth, Mirage Press, 1971 |
The Complete Guide to Middle-earth: fromThe Hobbit toThe Silmarillion is a reference book forJ. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe ofMiddle-earth, compiled and edited by Robert Foster. It was first published in 1971 under the titleA Guide to Middle-earth. A revised and enlarged edition under the titleThe Complete Guide to Middle-earth was published in 1978. It received a third edition in 2001.
Robert Foster (b. 1949,Brooklyn) earned a Ph.D. in English and Medieval Studies at theUniversity of Pennsylvania, and taught subsequently in the English Department atRutgers University.[1][2] Foster begun work on this in the late sixties, consulting Tolkien works and letters.[3]
The 1971A Guide to Middle-earth was the first publishedencyclopedic reference book for thefictional universe ofJ. R. R. Tolkien'sMiddle-earth, compiled and edited by Robert Foster.[3] The book was published in 1971 byMirage Press, a specialistscience fiction andfantasy publisher, in a limited edition.[3] A paperback edition was issued byBallantine Books in 1974.[4]
The author profile in the first edition describes Robert Foster as the then-"Tengwar Consultant" to theTolkien Society of America.[5] The book incorporates material previously published in thescience fiction fanzineNiekas.[3]
AINUR (Q.: 'holy ones') Angelic spirits, offspring of the thought of Ilúvatar. Most of the Ainur dwell with Ilúvatar, but some, the Valar and Maiar (qq.v.), have come to Eä to fulfill the Ainulindalë. ...
The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, published in 1978 was a major expansion ofA Guide to Middle-earth, at almost twice its length, with coverage ofThe Silmarillion, which came out in 1977.[7] However, as it does not include information on post-Silmarillion material (i.e.Unfinished Tales and the history of composition seriesThe History of Middle-earth), the 1978 edition contains some assertions supported by later publications, and some that are contradicted. For example, the Star ofElendil jewel (the Elendilmir) is identified with the Star of theDúnedain given toSamwise Gamgee, something refuted byChristopher Tolkien.[8] On the other hand, Foster proposes thatGandalf andOlórin are one and the same; this is stated directly by Gandalf inThe Two Towers.[9]
A revised edition (ISBN 0-345-44976-2) was published in 2001, in time forPeter Jackson'sThe Lord of the Rings film trilogy.[3]
A newhardback edition illustrated byTed Nasmith, including standard and slipcased versions, was released in September 2022.[10][11]
Early editions ofThe Complete Guide to Middle-earth have been widely recognised as providing an excellent reference on Middle-earth.[12]Lester del Rey praised the 1971 version for covering "literally everything you wanted to know about Middle Earth and were unable to discover before."[13]Christopher Tolkien commended it in 1980 as an "admirable work of reference".[14] in 2002, Charles W. Nelson, author ofA Tolkien Bestiary, wrote that the guide was helpful for Tolkien students and enthusiasts, each new edition being a noticeable improvement over its predecessors in terms of comprehensiveness.[3]
Dissenting, Adam Roberts, writing inThe Times in 2022, calls the revised edition disappointing and "woefully outdated" in the face of the wealth of information on Tolkien now available on the Internet.[11]
A Polish edition,Encyklopedia Śródziemia, was published in 1998, and reprinted in 2002, 2003 and 2012.[15] A German edition,Das Große Mittelerde-Lexikon, revised and translated byHelmut W. Pesch, was published in 2002.[16]
[alt. subtitle] FromThe Silmarillion toThe Lord of the Rings