What is the page count of Volume one of The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide?

Volume one contained an 800-page chronology of real events in the original edition.

How many pages are in the revised three-volume set of The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide published in 2017?

The entire new work occupies 2720 pages total after expanding from the original counts.

The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide

Q: Who called The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide undoubtedly a seminal if not the definitive reference work on the Professor?

David Oberhelman called it undoubtedly a seminal if not the definitive reference work on the Professor.

Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond released their two-volume reference work in 2006. This husband and wife team had already published The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion the year before. Their new project aimed to document Tolkien's actual life rather than his invented worlds. Volume one contained an 800-page chronology of real events. Volume two offered a reader's guide covering people, places, and organizations linked to the author. The preface explicitly stated this was not a handbook for fictional lands or characters.

The first volume spans 800 pages of biographical detail about J. R. R. Tolkien. It presents an extraordinarily detailed timeline of his actual life events from birth to death. David Oberhelman called it "undoubtedly a seminal if not the definitive reference work on the Professor." John Garth described the effort as a "super-heavyweight contribution by two highly regarded veterans of Tolkien studies." The book avoids entries on fictional people or places found in Middle-earth. Instead it ambitiously covers the whole of Tolkien's life in diaristic detail similar to The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien. This approach offers scholars and interested readers wealth of detail on why and how Tolkien wrote as he did.

Volume two contains information on people, places, organisations, biographical topics, literary topics and writings by Tolkien. It catalogs real entities connected to the author rather than invented ones. Michael D. C. Drout's The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia may have the edge on matters of criticism but Scull and Hammond excel at biographical matters. The encyclopedic structure rightly avoids having entries on fictional people, places, and totems. Robert Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-earth had incautiously adopted such entries which this work deliberately excludes. Where there is interpretation beyond what Tolkien or his son Christopher write, the work tends to cite scholars like Verlyn Flieger and Tom Shippey. Arguments are presented in a balanced way while discussions remain always informative as well as entertaining.

A revised three-volume set appeared in 2017 extending the original page counts significantly. Volume one "Chronology" grew from 800 pages to 936 pages covering more years of life events. Volumes two and three became the "Reader's Guide" split into Part I for A through M and Part II for N through Z. The entire new work occupies 2720 pages total. Jason Fisher noted that many defects and oversights in the first edition have been fixed. These include the provision of running headwords at the top of each page and a list of topics covered by the work. The expansion incorporated years' worth of material found on the authors' website making it an indispensable resource for biography and bibliography.

Scholars praised the work as a definitive resource for biography while distinguishing it from fictional guides. David Oberhelman stated the breadth of coverage and authority with which Scull and Hammond document Tolkien's life would make these books invaluable supplements. He called the work truly a monumental achievement. John Garth argued the encyclopedic structure rightly avoids entries on fictional elements. Jason Fisher explicitly endorsed the praise given by both Oberhelman and Garth stating it still deserved such acclaim. Early reviewers were correct to predict the lasting value of Scull and Hammond's work. They described it as an indispensable resource alongside the pair's other books especially for matters of biography and bibliography.

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

Chronology Volume One

Reader Guide Structure

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Second Edition Expansion

Critical Reception Analysis

Chronology Volume One

Reader Guide Structure

Second Edition Expansion

Critical Reception Analysis