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The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide has been published both in the U.K. and the U.S. It is available from local bookstores, and from online sellers such as Amazon U.K., Amazon U.S., Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million. These links are to the two-volume boxed set; each volume is also being sold separately by both HarperCollins (U.K.) and Houghton Mifflin (U.S.). Images of the upper jackets, and of the slipcase spine, are shown below. To clarify some of the confusion still present among the online listings, vol. 1 has 1,020 pages, vol. 2 has 1,280 pages, and they have been published only in hardcover.

Most readers' comments we have received have been very positive. We are very grateful for these, having worked so hard on the Companion and Guide for some seven years (plus some three years' rumination before that, after the project was suggested to us by HarperCollins in 1996). Of course, there's no pleasing everyone, and the two volumes with their lengthy chronology of Tolkien's life and works, checklists and descriptions of his writings, and notes on significant persons, places, issues, and events have been criticized as well as praised. Here are a few of the complaints we've received, with our comments:

The lack of page headings by topic in vol. 2 (the Reader's Guide) makes it hard to find one's place in the book. Wayne, who designed and typeset the Companion and Guide, planned to insert such headings as one of the last steps in production before the book went to HarperCollins for printing. Final writing and revision, obtaining permissions to quote, crafting a six-page copyright statement, and compiling a 60-page index, however, took us nearly to our final deadline, and then, at the eleventh hour, Christina had a heart attack, followed by urgent cardiac surgery. Wayne revised the index and produced final printer's copy while also sitting with Christina in hospital or caring for her on our return home. In the circumstances, there was no time also to create individual headings for more than a thousand pages, if the Companion and Guide was to be published in autumn 2006.

The Reader's Guide should have included a list of the topics covered by individual entries. Again, this feature was planned, and such a list was compiled. But the index, expected to be only 45 pages, ran to 60, and that extended vol. 2 all told to 1,280 pages, the maximum length specified by HarperCollins for binding a single volume printed on the paper they had chosen. Having already trimmed some entries and omitted others altogether, and having moved to vol. 1 appendices we had intended to include in vol. 2, we could do no more, and the list of topics had to go. We have, however, published it here on the present website.

The Companion and Guide contains no maps. These too would have been included had there been time to produce them. We hope still to do so, and to post them on our website.

Why did you include the same preface, list of works consulted, and index in both volumes? The Companion and Guide was conceived and written as a single work, but grew to such a length that it was necessary to bind it in two volumes. If all copies of these had been published as a set, we could have dispensed with duplicate prefaces, etc.; but since our publishers chose to sell the volumes separately as well as together in a slipcase, we had to treat each volume as if it were independent, and include in it all essential features: explanation of scope and method, acknowledgements, full citations to works consulted (cited only briefly in the text), index, and statement of copyright.

Why did you not provide notes which identify your sources of information? To an extent, we do. In each volume we include a long, comprehensive list of the printed, electronic, and archival sources we used in writing the Companion and Guide, and we identify the source of quoted matter conveniently after each quotation. But it was not feasible to cite our precise source for every piece of data, as has been suggested. To do so would have needed a further volume unto itself, and additional months of labour. A single sentence in the Chronology, for instance, might be drawn from two or three sources, while some longer entries in either volume were based on dozens.

The Reader's Guide would have been better divided into a 'Who's Who', 'Where's Where', and 'What's What', rather than presented in a single alphabetical sequence. Our original model was Walter Hooper's C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide (HarperCollins, 1996; see our preface, p. xv), which contains a life of Lewis, a section on his works, articles on key ideas, a 'Who's Who', and a 'What's What'. Frequent reference to this excellent book, however, showed that one needed always first to distinguish whatever information was wanted as either a work, an idea, a person, or otherwise (a 'what', i.e. a place, institution, or miscellaneous), then to find the appropriate part of the volume (which, too, does not have topical page headings), and then to locate the specific article. As this came to seem onerous, we decided that users of our Reader's Guide would be best served with a straightforward presentation of topics, alphabetically arranged rather than classified. We still believe this to be the best approach.

The title The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, and the title of its second volume (Reader's Guide), are confusingly similar to the title of our earlier book, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. The final title of our new book is a slight modification of J.R.R. Tolkien: A Companion and Guide, which was chosen by analogy with C.S. Lewis: A Companion and Guide. This was decided, and widely advertised, years before we wrote our book of annotations for The Lord of the Rings. When the latter work needed a title, we needed to devise one which would attract a wide audience and, most importantly, not falsely suggest that the book included the text of The Lord of the Rings itself. Thus titles we might have preferred, such as The Lord of the Rings Annotated, or that were delightful but too esoteric, such as A Lord of the Rings Enchiridion, were eliminated (though we did manage to slip enchiridia into the preface). Of remaining suggestions, The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion was thought best by HarperCollins, though we cautioned that the words Reader's and Companion would lead to confusion with Reader's Guide and Companion and Guide. So it has proved. But there are, after all, only so many words that one can apply to books like these, and all of them had been used already: compare, for instance, J.E.A. Tyler's Tolkien Companion. In the end, we have had to choose some of the same words for two works in unique variations, and trust to the ability of our readers to tell the difference.

Addenda and corrigenda to The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide may be found here.

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While working on the Companion and Guide we edited the 50th anniversary edition of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, with the approval of Christopher Tolkien, to ensure the most accurate version to date. This was published in 2004. A new printing, with further corrections and a new, much enlarged index, appeared in 2005. Our separate volume of annotations to The Lord of the Rings, entitled The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, was published by HarperCollins in the U.K. and Houghton Mifflin in the U.S. in 2005. HarperCollins offered this both in hardback and mass market paperback, separately and in boxed sets with The Lord of the Rings. The original HarperCollins editions are now out of print, but a revised trade paperback edition was published in 2008. Houghton Mifflin have published only in hardback; their edition is still available as of this writing (August 2008). The hardback, original paperback, and trade paperback covers are shown below.

Addenda and corrigenda to the The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion may be found here.

The Lord of the Rings A Reader's Companion trade paperback

We have also copy-edited for Marquette University Press the twenty papers presented at the October 2004 Tolkien conference held in Milwaukee, The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder. See more information here. The volume includes our own papers, "What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?: Planning, Inspiration, and The Lord of the Rings" (Christina) and "Special Collections in the Service of Tolkien Studies" (Wayne).

Selected Publications

Wayne G. Hammond
Christina Scull

Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull (as joint authors or editors)

Essay-article on The History of Middle-earth. Seven 12 (1995).

J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1995.

"The Making of J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist & Illustrator". Proceedings of Unquendor's Third Lustrum Conference, Held in Delft, 25 May 1996 (Lembas-extra). Leiden: Unquendor, 1998.

Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.

Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien. 50th anniversary edition. Ed. by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

"J.R.R. Tolkien: The Achievement of His Literary Life". Mythlore 22, no. 3, whole no. [85] (Winter 1999).

The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Ed. by Humphrey Carpenter with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien. London: HarperCollins, 1999; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. New, expanded index by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. 50th anniversary edition. [Ed. with a note by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull.] London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Beginning with late 2005 printings, the edition contains further emendations and a new, enlarged index by Hammond and Scull.

The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Rev. edition HarperCollins, 2008.

The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder. Ed. by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2006.

The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. London: HarperCollins; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Two volumes, Chronology and Reader's Guide, published as a boxed set and separately.

Wayne G. Hammond

"Addenda to 'J.R.R. Tolkien: A Bibliography'". Bulletin of Bibliography and Magazine Notes 34, no. 3 (July-Sept. 1977).

The Samuel Butler Newsletter, 1980-95, editor and contributor.

The Graphic Art of C.B. Falls: An Introduction. Williamstown, Mass.: Chapin Library, 1982.

"John Bellairs: An Appreciation and a Checklist". The XVIIIth Mythopoeic Conference [program book]. Milwaukee: Mythopoeic Society, 1987.

"All the Comforts: The Image of Home in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings". Mythlore 14, no. 1, whole no. 51 (Autumn 1987).

Abstracts of Tolkien studies in "An Inklings Bibliography". Mythlore 15, no. 3, whole no. 57 (Spring 1989)-22, no. 3, whole no. [85] (Winter 1999), most issues.

"The Trade Bindings of C.B. Falls". Trade Bindings Research Newsletter 4 (Mar. 1992).

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography. With the assistance of Douglas A. Anderson. Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies; New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Books, 1993.

"Fair Dealing". Tolkien Collector 5 (Nov. 1993).

The Kaldewey Press of Poestenkill, New York. Williamstown, Mass.: Chapin Library, 1993.

"The Critical Response to Tolkien's Fiction". Proceedings of the 1992 Tolkien Centenary Conference. Ed. by Patricia Reynolds & Glen H. GoodKnight. Milton Keynes: The Tolkien Society; Altadena, Calif.: The Mythopoeic Society, 1995.

"Seraphim, Cherubim, and Virtual Unicorns: Order and Being in Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quartet". Mythlore 20, no. 4, whole no. 78 (Winter 1995).

"Pauline Baynes". British Children's Writers, 1914-1960. Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 160. Ed. by Donald R. Hettinga & Gary D. Schmidt. Detroit: Gale Research, 1996.

"A Ransome Bibliographer at Work". Talks Given at the Literary Weekend, October 1997. Kendal: Arthur Ransome Society, 1998.

"'A Continuing and Evolving Creation': Distractions in the Later History of Middle-earth". Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth. Ed. by Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.

"Should We Be Sorry for the Might-Have-Beens?" Talks Given at the Literary Weekend, September 1999. Kendal: Arthur Ransome Society, 2000.

Arthur Ransome: A Bibliography. Winchester: St Paul's Bibliographies; New Castle, Del.: Oak Knoll Press, 2000.

"Whose Lord of the Rings Is It, Anyway?" Canadian C.S. Lewis Journal 97 (Spring 2000).

"Special Collections in the Service of Tolkien Studies". The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder. Ed. by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2006.

Christina Scull

"A Preliminary Study of Variations in Editions of The Lord of the Rings". Beyond Bree, Apr. 1985; Aug. 1985.

"The Fairy Tale Tradition". Mallorn 23 (Summer 1986).

"Differences in Picture Reproduction between British and American Editions [of J.R.R. Tolkien's works]". Beyond Bree, May 1987.

"The Hobbit Considered in Relation to Children's Literature Contemporary with Its Writing and Publication". Mythlore 14, no. 2, whole no. 52 (Winter 1987).

"The Publishing History of Farmer Giles of Ham". Amon Hen 98 (July 1989).

"On Reading and Re-reading The Lord of the Rings". Mallorn 27 (Sept. 1990).

Appendix on Adam drawings for Fredericks Place. The Mercers' Hall by Jean Imray. London: London Topographical Society, 1991.

"Dragons from Andrew Lang's Retelling of Sigurd to Tolkien's Chrysophylax" and "Tom Bombadil and The Lord of the Rings". Leaves from the Tree: J.R.R. Tolkien's Shorter Fiction. London: Tolkien Society, 1991.

The Soane Hogarths. London: Trefoil Publications for Sir John Soane's Museum, 1991.

"The Influence of Archaeology and History on Tolkien's World." Scholarship & Fantasy: Proceedings of The Tolkien Phenomenon. Anglicana Turkuensia, no. 12. Ed. by K.J. Batterbee. Turku: University of Turku, 1993.

Catalogue entries. Soane: Connoisseur & Collector: A Selection of Drawings from Sir John Soane's Collection. London: Sir John Soane's Museum, 1995.

Catalogue entries. Buildings in Progress: Soane's Views of Construction. London: The Soane Gallery, 1995.

"Open Minds, Closed Minds in The Lord of the Rings". Proceedings of the J.R.R. Tolkien Centenary Conference. Ed. by Patricia Reynolds & Glen H. GoodKnight. Milton Keynes: The Tolkien Society; Altadena, Calif.: The Mythopoeic Society, 1995.

"The Development of Tolkien's Legendarium: Some Threads in the History of Middle-earth". Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth. Ed. by Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2000.

"What Did He Know and When Did He Know It?: Planning, Inspiration, and The Lord of the Rings". The Lord of the Rings, 1954-2004: Scholarship in Honor of Richard E. Blackwelder. Ed. by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2006.

"Tolkien: The Great Storyteller". British Philatelic Bulletin, Oct. 1992.

The Tolkien Collector, 1 (1992) to date, editor and contributor.

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