Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth

Douglas A. Anderson published his first book, The Annotated Hobbit, in 1988. He helped correct the text of The Lord of the Rings in both the American and English editions, and these versions contain his introductory “Note on the Text” (U.S. edition, 1987; U.K. edition, 1994). He is also the lesser coauthor (with Wayne G. Hammond) of J.R.R.Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography (1993). Other books he has edited include The Dragon Path: Collected Tales of Kenneth Morris (1995) and a reissue of E.A. Wyke-Smith’s The Marvellous Land of Snergs (1996), a children’s book originally published in 1927 that provided the impetus for Tolkien’s children’s book, The Hobbit.

David Bratman served as editor of Mythprint, the monthly bulletin of The Mythopoeic Society, from 1980 to 1995, and as chairman of the 1988 Mythopoeic Conference. He has published articles on Tolkien, Mervyn Peake, H.V.D. Dyson, and other authors in The Tolkien Collector, The New York Review of Science Fiction, Mythlore, and other journals, and is currently preparing a documentary chronology of the Inklings. He holds an M.L.S. from the University of Washington and has worked as a librarian at Stanford University and elsewhere.

Marjorie Burns has taught nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature at Portland State University for twenty-five years. Her doctoral dissertation on nineteenth-century British fantasists led naturally to a study of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing. She has taught Celtic and Norse mythology and worked as a Fulbright professor in Norway. She has published and lectured extensively on Tolkien, both in the United States and overseas.

Joe R. Christopher is Professor of English at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, Texas. He has published six essays on Tolkien’s life and works, among more than 125 published essays. He also has published a booklet of Tolkien-inspired light verse, Musings beneath a Tree of Amalion (2nd ed., 1993).

Verlyn Flieger is Professor of English at the University of Maryland, where she teaches courses in Tolkien, comparative mythology, and fantasy and science fiction. She is the author of two books on Tolkien, Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien’s World (1983) and A Question of Time: J.R.R.Tolkien’s Road to Faërie (1997). She has also published a number of essays on Tolkien and other Inklings.

Christopher Gilson attended the University of California at Berkeley and now works as a software engineer. In his spare time he has been studying Tolkien’s Elvish languages for the last thirty years, and he is the present editor of the journal Parma Eldalamberon. He is currently heading a project to order, transcribe, and edit Tolkien’s unpublished linguistic papers.

Wayne G. Hammond is a librarian at the Chapin Library of Rare Books, Williams College. He is the author of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography (1993) and a forthcoming bibliography of Arthur Ransome; coauthor with his wife, Christina Scull, of J.R.R.Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (1995); and coeditor with Christina of Tolkien’s Roverandom (1998) and the fiftieth anniversary edition of Farmer Giles of Ham (1999). He and Christina have also prepared a new index for Tolkien’s Letters (1999). He frequently writes notes on Tolkien for the journals Mythlore and The Tolkien Collector.

Carl F. Hostetter is a computer scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. His chief scholarly interest of the past fifteen years has been the invented languages of J.R.R. Tolkien, and he has edited a journal devoted to the subject, Vinyar Tengwar, since 1989. He is also a member of a project to order, transcribe, and edit Tolkien’s unpublished linguistic papers.

Charles E. Noad first read The Lord of the Rings in 1961 and has kept up the interest since. He joined the Tolkien Society in 1971 and responds to members’ questions on bibliographical matters. He has read various recent Tolkien publications, including volumes of The History of Middle-earth, at proof stage. Other interests include William Blake and astronautics. He has worked mainly as a computer programmer.

John D. Rateliff spent sixteen years working with the manuscripts of J.R.R. Tolkien at Marquette University, including assisting in the collation of Marquette’s holdings with those that Christopher Tolkien edited for volumes VI through IX of The History of Middle-earth. He received his Ph.D. from Marquette with a dissertation on Lord Dunsany, the influential Anglo-Irish fantasist. Active in Tolkien scholarship for many years, he has helped to organize two major Tolkien conferences and delivered papers on Tolkien, Dunsany, Barfield, the Inklings, and other fantasy writers. A professional editor, he has edited or written over thirty role-playing game products. He is currently writing Mr. Baggins: The History of The Hobbit, a critical edition of the original manuscript of Tolkien’s book.

Christina Scull is the former librarian of Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. She chaired the Tolkien Centenary Conference in 1992, edits the journal The Tolkien Collector, and is coauthor with her husband, Wayne G. Hammond, of J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (1995), the definitive work on Tolkien’s art, and coeditor with Wayne of Tolkien’s children’s story Roverandom (1998) and the fiftieth anniversary edition of Farmer Giles of Ham (1999). She and Wayne have also prepared a new index for Tolkien’s Letters (1999).

Arden R. Smith lives in Albany, California, and has recently received a Ph.D. in Germanic Linguistics from the University of California, Berkeley. He has published numerous articles in the field of Tolkien studies, especially concerning Tolkien’s invented writing systems and the translation of Tolkien’s works. He is a member of a project to order, transcribe, and edit Tolkien’s unpublished linguistic papers, in which his particular focus has been those dealing with the Elvish alphabets.

Paul Edmund Thomas was educated at the University of Chicago, where he earned a B.A. and an M.A. in English literature, and at Hamline University Law School, where he earned a J.D. His main efforts as a literary scholar have been devoted to editing and annotating the four major works of E.R. Eddison, which recently appeared in two volumes—The Worm Ouroboros and Zimiamvia: A Trilogy.

Rayner Unwin started as a publisher in 1951 in his family company, George Allen & Unwin Ltd. He succeeded his father, Sir Stanley Unwin, as Chairman in 1968, merged the company to become Unwin Hyman in 1986, and retired in 1990 when the firm was taken over by HarperCollins. His connection with Tolkien has been even longer. At the age of ten he read and recommended the publication of The Hobbit. During the war he met Tolkien in Oxford and read fragments of the unpublished legendarium. Later, after he had joined Allen & Unwin, he found ways of making possible the publication of The Lord of the Rings. During these years, and subsequently, a long and trusting friendship became established with Tolkien and his family; it continues still.

Richard C. West has a diverse background in medieval English, French, and Scandinavian literature, as well as in modern science fiction and fantasy, and in library science. His bibliography, Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist, has gone through two editions, and he has published articles on such authors as J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Peter S. Beagle, and Mervyn Peake. He is on the Board of Advisors of the Mythopoeic Society and on the editorial board of Extrapolation. He is currently a Senior Academic Librarian and the Assistant Director for Technical Services at the Kurt F. Wendt Library at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Patrick Wynne has authored numerous articles on Tolkien’s invented languages for the journals Parma Eldalamberon, Vinyar Tengwar, and Mythlore and is a member of a project to order, transcribe, and edit Tolkien’s unpublished linguistic papers. His artwork has been published in numerous Tolkien journals and other publications, and he has illustrated several books, including Fish Soup by Ursula K. Le Guin.