An Encyclopedia of Tolkien, by David Day
An Encyclopedia of Tolkien: the History and Mythology that Inspired Tolkien's World , by David Day (Canterbury Classics, October 2019), is the latest in the author's guides to Middle Earth. If you have a young bibliophile, who has just read Lord of the Rings and fallen hard for it, this is a perfect gift. It is a tremendously attractive book, bound in soft leather with a green silk bookmark, the sort of book 12 year old me would have died to own, and one that would have inspired me to head down wonderful rabbit holes exploring myth and history. Day produced an earlier encyclopedia, Tolkien: the Illustrated Encyclopedia , back in 1991. However, the focus of this particular effort sets it apart. It is not meant as a guide just to the people, places, and events of Tolkien's world, but as a guide to the bits of history and legend that (maybe) Tolkien had in mind (unconsciously or not) when he created them. (Day tends to ignore the "maybe" part of this, la...
