Here are addenda and corrigenda common to both volumes of the original edition of The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, as well as general comments on the work. Elsewhere on this site may be read common addenda and corrigenda added by date (beginning 11 May 2008); addenda and corrigenda specific to vol. 1, the Chronology; and addenda and corrigenda specific to vol. 2, the Reader’s Guide. In addition, Elena Rossi has kindly compiled a list of references to tolkien’s art in the Chronology, which we present in an edited version [WORD]. Significant revisions of addenda or corrigenda (as opposed to revisions of the Companion and Guide proper) are marked thus: [REVISED]. Hyperlinks are included selectively, to lead to further (especially pictorial) material; for additional links, see the supplemental bibliography of sources.
No additions have been made to this page since 31 March 2015. Further corrections, and many additions, were included in the second edition of the Companion and Guide, published by HarperCollins in November 2017.
In our preface to the Companion and Guide we stated that although our book ‘often will be found useful by itself . . . its purpose is equally to point to other resources in which a subject is more fully considered or differing points of view are expressed’ (p. ix). That is, we cited works of reference or criticism upon which we drew for our entries or which expand upon what we wrote, by authors whose points of view may differ one from the other. In doing so, we tried not to impose a particular interpretation – in cases of interpretation rather than of fact – and were careful not to cite (as some critics have been known to do) only those references which support our personal views, if we had any. We could not, of course, cite every work which touches upon a given subject, and we felt that in choosing works to cite we should apply our expertise in Tolkien studies and mention only those resources which were especially useful, cogent, or well written – and so to this extent, at least (and in our notation of important writings in our list of ‘Works Consulted’), we expressed our own opinion.
We have applied these same criteria when mentioning secondary literature in our ‘Addenda and Corrigenda’, but now that the Companion and Guide (in particular, the Reader’s Guide) is in print, we have chosen not to cite works which cover basically the same ground as our existing entries, but only those which take the subject in new directions, express notable new points, or express old points with particular felicity. At the same time, we have tended not to cite works dripping with jargon or written in so convoluted a style as to be unintelligible, all the worse when their subjects are inherently difficult or controversial. Tom Shippey has remarked that ‘one needs a PhD from an approved elite institution to understand postmodern literary discussion’ (Roots and Branches, p. ii), but we wonder if even those with such august credentials could endure some of what passes for Tolkien scholarship.
The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide was sent to HarperCollins on 20 August 2006 as completed PDFs and immediately put into production. Late the next month, we received the September 2006 issue (no. 201) of Amon Hen, the bulletin of the Tolkien Society, with the article ‘They Slept in Beauty’ by Maggie Burns on pp. 11-12. Using local history resources, Maggie discovered that Jane Suffield and Edwin Neave were not married until August 1905, and that in 1904 Jane was a teacher at Bath Row Girls’ School in Birmingham. Humphrey Carpenter, therefore, was incorrect in J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography when he stated that Jane and Edwin were already married when Ronald was sent in 1904 to stay with Edwin’s family in Hove; and our tentative identification in J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator of the two figures in Ronald’s drawing They Slept in Beauty Side by Side as Edwin and Jane must also be incorrect. Maggie suggests that the drawing is of Edwin and Ronald, and this seems most likely.
As it was too late for any corrections to be made to the Companion and Guide before publication, we decided to postpone further investigation of this matter until our next visit to England, planned for April 2007. In January 2007, however, we were contacted by Andrew H. Morton, who had become interested in Jane Neave because of their shared connections with Gedling, and were asked for information about her relationship with the Brookes-Smith family. We told Andrew what we knew and suggested leads he might follow. He eventually uncovered a great deal of new material, and even made contact with Colin Brookes-Smith’s daughter, Jennifer Paxman. In his enquiries to St Andrews, he was luckier than we: we had been told that no evidence could be found to confirm that Jane Neave had been warden of a college there, but Andrew was sent details of the period from summer 1909 to the end of 1911, when Jane was Lady Warden of University Hall. (Perhaps the archives have been more thoroughly catalogued or digitized in the five years since we wrote to St Andrews, or a different staff member was willing to search more thoroughly.)
Andrew’s findings, gathered with fellow researcher John Hayes, were presented in Tolkien’s Gedling, 1914: The Birth of a Legend (Studley, Warwickshire: Brewin Books, 2008). We were pleased to read this in draft and to suggest various revisions. Andrew has also produced a second, related book, Tolkien’s Bag End (Brewin Books, 2009), concerned with Jane Neave’s Worcestershire home ‘Bag End’.
Most of our addenda and corrigenda concerning Jane and Edwin Neave and the Brookes-Smith family are based on the work of Maggie Burns, Andrew H. Morton, and John Hayes, to whom we are very grateful.
In addition to those mentioned above, we would like to thank Chris Anderson, Douglas A. Anderson, Beregond (Anders Stenström), Paula Bergstrom, Craig Bowen, John Buckelew, Oronzo Cilli, ‘Darkstone’, David ‘Hisilome’, Merlin DeTardo, Michaël Devaux, ‘diedye’, David Doughan, Jeremy Edmonds, Andrew Ferguson, Jason Fisher, Timothy Fisher, Mike Foster, John Garth, Colin Harper, David Henshall, William C. Hicklin, hisataka@csc.jp, Jeff Kinder, David King, Stuart Lee, Josh B. Long, Jeremy Marshall, Fiona Mercey, Matthias Nauhaus, Rumas Nicholas, Ed Pierce, Juha-Matti Rajala, Alan Reynolds, Elena Rossi, Marek Srodziemie, Simon Stacey, Vivien Stocker, Yvan Strelzyk, Tonny ten Dam, Morgan Thomsen, Christopher Tolkien, and Tony Wearing for calling various points to our attention. For assistance with the minutes of the Oxford Dante Society, we are grateful to the staff of the Taylor Institution Library, Oxford. We would like to thank the Tolkien Estate for permission to publish excerpts from Tolkien's correspondence in the Houghton Mifflin Company archive, held at the Houghton Library, Harvard University, to whose staff we also extend gratitude.
List of works facing the title-page: For ‘Letters by’ read ‘The Letters of’.
Preface, p. xiii, fourth paragraph: Here, in explaining our preferred style that ‘titles of discrete works by Tolkien . . . are italicized’, we should have taken this further to state that although in most instances such titles were those assigned by Tolkien himself, it seemed best to accept a few as assigned by Christopher Tolkien, the author’s son and chief editor, such as Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin in Unfinished Tales (rather than its author’s choice, Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin, to avoid confusion with the twenty-third chapter of The Silmarillion) and the Gnomish Lexicon (rather than the unwieldy I·Lam na·Ngoldathon). In most cases in which a title has been editorially assigned to a work by Tolkien, however, such as that given to an untitled linguistic fragment by the editors of Parma Eldalamberon, or given by ourselves in J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator to an untitled drawing, we have expressed it in quotation marks, not in italics.
In the Chronology, wherever we have inserted a reference ‘see note’, the reader is directed to the section of Notes to the Chronology beginning on p. 776 of that volume.
Preface, p. xiv, second paragraph: We may not have made it clear that we intended our separate entries for works by Tolkien in the Reader’s Guide to be limited to those that have been published. This is true also in the present addenda and corrigenda. Unpublished works are noted in topical articles, however, such as The Fall of Arthur in ‘Arthur and the Matter of Britain’, and in the Chronology. We should also mention one semi-exception, Corrected Names of Chief Valar, which has not been published as a separate entity but partly published in The Book of Lost Tales, Part One, information from it having been included in the appendix ‘Names in the Lost Tales’.
In general, we have written separate entries for those of Tolkien’s poems that are published in whole or in large part (i.e. more than a few lines), and are not integral with a larger literary work, e.g. the poems of The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. We have omitted separate entry only for clerihews and for the drinking songs contributed by Tolkien to Songs for the Philologists.
Preface, p. xv, general notes on style: In the Reader’s Guide, all entries for persons whose surname begins ‘Mc’ or ‘Mac’ are alphabetized as if the name begins with Mac; thus the entry for R.B. McCallum appears before that for Gervase Mathew. Entries for works whose titles begin with ‘Of’ are alphabetized according to the first significant element, e.g. the entry for ‘Of the Beginning of Days’ (in The Silmarillion) is alphabetized under ‘Beginning’.
Works Consulted, entry for Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Biographical Register, 1880–1974, l. 1: For ‘Comp. by’ read ‘Comp.’
Works Consulted, entry for Curry, Patrick. ‘Tolkien and His Critics: A Critique’, ll. 2–3: For ‘Comare Series 2. Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 1999.’ read ‘Zurich: Walking Tree Publishers, 1999. Comarë Series 2.’
Works Consulted, entry for Grotta-Kurska, Daniel, l. 4: For ‘1998’ read ‘1978’.
Works Consulted, add entry: Honey, Derek S. An Encyclopaedia of Oxford Pubs, Inns and Taverns. Usk, Monmouthshire: Oakwood Press, 1998.
Works Consulted, entry for Kilby, Clyde S., l. 1: For ‘Tolkien and the Silmarillion’ read ‘Tolkien & the Silmarillion’.
Works Consulted, entry for ‘Middle Earth Verse’: Add at end: ‘Attributed to Alfred Duggan.’
Works Consulted, entry for Ryan, J.S. ‘J.R.R. Tolkien: Lexicography and Other Early Linguistic Preferences’: Add: ‘Reissued in Ryan, Tolkien’s View: Windows into His World (2009), pp. 71–87.’
Works Consulted, entry for Ryan, J.S. The Shaping of Middle-earth’s Maker: Influences on the Life and Literature of J.R.R. Tolkien: Add: ‘These two essays were reissued in Ryan, Tolkien’s View: Windows into His World (2009), pp. 27–32 and 61–70 respectively.’
Works Consulted, entry for Ryan, J.S. ‘The Work and Preferences of the Professor of Old Norse at the University of Oxford from 1925 to 1945’: Add: ‘Reissued in Ryan, Tolkien’s View: Windows into His World (2009), pp. 89–96.’
Works Consulted, entry for Shippey, T.A. The Road to Middle-earth, l. 5: For ‘withdifferent’ read ‘with different’.
Works Consulted, entry for Signalling: Morse, Semaphore . . ., l. 1: For ‘Edited by’ read ‘Ed.’
Works Consulted, entry for Smith, Alan ‘A Shire Pleasure’: The full citation is ‘A Shire Pleasure’, Pipes and Tobacco 5, no. 4 (Winter 2001), pp. 20–4.
Works Consulted, entry for Tolkien, John, and Priscilla Tolkien, l. 1: For ‘A Tolkien Family Album’ read ‘The Tolkien Family Album’.
Works Consulted, entry for Tolkien, Priscilla. ‘J.R.R. Tolkien and Edith Tolkien’s Stay . . .’, l. 2: For ‘p. 4–5’ read ‘pp. 4–5’.
Works Consulted, entry for ‘Tolkien’s Farewell’: For ‘1969’ read ‘1959’.
Index, prefatory note: For the most part, buildings, churches, hotels, pubs, etc. are entered as sub-headings under the place in which they are located, e.g. the Randolph Hotel under ‘Oxford and environs’.
We should have mentioned that we chose not to index the names of characters (or places, etc.) in Tolkien’s works. This was partly for lack of space – the Reader’s Guide in fact reached the limit of the number of pages that could be bound in one volume – but also because our study generally is of the larger picture of the works rather than the tighter focus of individual characters. (See, however, comments on Tom Bombadil in the entry for the poem The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, on Galadriel in the entry for The History of Galadriel and Celeborn, and so forth. But see also our Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion.)
We must also reiterate our caveat at the head of the index: The following is not meant to trace every mention of every person, place, or title in our text, but to point to those elements most pertinent to Tolkien’s life and works, or otherwise likely to be of interest to readers, including the names of authorities and other writers. An index which mechanically traces every mention of every term is less helpful to the reader than one which does not, because it will lead to material that is only tangential to the principal subject of the book. The quality ‘likely to be of interest to readers’ of course is entirely subjective.
Index, prefatory note, ll. 9–10: For ‘Reader’s Guide’ read (boldfaced) ‘Reader’s Guide’.
Index, entry for Aldarion and Erendis: For ‘II 34–5’ read ‘II 34–7’.
Index, entry for Ambarkanta: For ‘II 41–3’ read ‘II 42–3’.
Index, entry for Appearance, Tolkien’s: For ‘II 52–5’ read ‘II 52–3’.
Index, entry for Application for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, An: For ‘1301’ read ‘130’.
Index, add cross-reference: Ardenne, Simonne Rosalie Thérèse Odile d’ see D’Ardenne, Simonne Rosalie Thérèse Odile
Index, entry for Ashmolean Museum: Delete as separate entry; combine citations ‘II 55, 709’ with those for vol. I under ‘Oxford and environs’.
Index, entry for HMHS Asturias: For ‘95’ read ‘I 95’.
Index, entry for Auden, W.H.: For II ‘68–70’ read ‘69–70’.
Index, add cross-reference: Automobiles see Cars.
Index, entry for Barad-dûr: Add citation: II 544.
Index, add entry: Bizet, Georges I 29, II 616; Carmen II 616.
Index, entry for Black Mountains: Add citation: I 387.
Index, add cross-reference: Blackfriars see Oxford and environs.
Index, entry for Blackwell, Basil H.: Add citation: I 772.
Index, entry for Bliss, A.J. (Alan): For ‘I 417’ read ‘I 418’.
Index, entry for Bombadil Goes Boating: For II ‘119’ read ‘119–20’.
Index, add entry: ‘Brandywine Ferry’ I 213.
Index, entry for British Museum: Delete as separate entry; make a sub-heading under ‘London’.
Index, entry for Cars: For ‘I 9, 162, 201, 231’ read ‘I 9, 162, 175, 201, 231; II 253–8, 432, 555, 590, 1038–40, 1041–2’.
Index, add entry: Cater, William I 669, 671, 753, 756, 757, II 280.
Index, entry for Chaudry, Arhar: For ‘Arhar 760’ read ‘Athar I 760’.
Index, entry for Childe, F.J.: For ‘Childe’ read ‘Child’.
Index, add entry: Chopin, Frédéric II 617.
Index, add entry: Christmas 1933 I 171.
Index, add entry: Cirith Ungol, drawings of I 272, 335.
Index, add cross-reference: ‘Coiled Dragon’ see Hringboga Heorte Gefysed.
Index, entry for Colburn, A.F.: For ‘Colburn’ read ‘Colborn’.
Index, add cross-reference: Consolation see Eucatastrophe.
Index, entry for Cottage, Barnt Green, The: Add citation: I 43.
Index, entry for Cottage of Lost Play, The: Add citation: II 859.
Index, entry for Crist: For ‘II 223’ read ‘II 233’.
Index, entry for Crossley-Holland, Kevin: Add citation: I 730.
Index, add entry: De Camp, L. Sprague I 622, 688.
Index, add entry: Dormston II 638.
Index, add entry: ‘Dragon and Warrior’ I 145, II 86.
Index, entry for Dunharrow, drawings of: Add citation: II 544.
Index, add entry: Dunne, J.W. II 565.
Index, add entry: Eldarinwe Leperi are Notessi II 995.
Index, add cross-reference: Fangorn Forest see Taur-na-Fúin.
Index, entry for Faulkner, Mr and Mrs Louis: Add citation: II 616.
Index, entry for Forest of Lothlorien in Spring, The: Add citation: II 544.
Index, entry for Foxglove Year: Add citation: I 43.
Index, add entry: Gargoyles, South Side, Lambourn I 34, II 104.
Index, entry for Gipsy Green: Add citation: I 104.
Index, entry for Glasgow: Add citations: I 396, 397.
Index, entry for Glasgow, University of: Add citations: I 388, 391, 398.
Index, entry for Good and Evil: For II ‘341–6’ read ‘341–5’.
Index, add entry: Gounod, Charles I 29.
Index, entry for Great Haywood: For II ‘351’ read ‘351–2’.
Index, add cross-reference: ‘Grendel’s Mere’ see Wudu Wyrtum Fæst.
Index, entry for Halsbury, Earl of: For ‘II 373, 358–9’ read ‘II 358–9, 373’.
Index, entry for Helm’s Deep, aerial view: For ‘Helm’s Deep, aerial view’ read ‘‘Helm’s Deep’’ (assigned title as on p. 833 and in Artist and Illustrator). Add citation: II 544.
Index, entry for Helm’s Deep and the Hornburg: Add citation: II 544.
Index, entry for Henry Bradley, 3 Dec., 1845–23 May, 1923: For ‘23May’ read ’23 May’ (with space).
Index, add entry: Hérold, Ferdinand I 29.
Index, entry for High Life at Gipsy Green: For ‘II 616’ read ‘I 104, II 616, 979’.
Index, entry for The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son: For ‘I 430’ read ‘I 429–30’.
Index, add entry: Hringboga Heorte Gefysed (‘Coiled Dragon’) I 141, II 86.
Index, entry for Hushwood, Cyril: For ‘Hushwood, Cyril’ read ‘Hinshelwood, C.N.’ and relocate alphabetically.
Index, add entry: Idril’s Device I 566.
Index, add entry: Isengard & Orthanc I 255.
Index, add entry: Isengard/Nan Curunir I 255.
Index, add entry: J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator II 55, 114, 436, 760.
Index, add entry: Keystone of Door I 34, II 104.
Index, add cross-reference: Kirith Ungol see Cirith Ungol.
Index, entry for La Boiselle: For ‘La Boiselle’ read ‘La Boisselle’.
Index, add cross-reference: Lamb and Flag see Oxford and environs.
Index, add entry: Language, proposed book on, with C.S. Lewis I 285.
Index, entry for Lays of Beleriand, The: For II ‘492’ read ‘492–3’.
Index, add entry: Lehár, Franz I 29.
Index, entry for Lewis, C.S.: Add sub-entry: ‘translation of Virgil’s Aeneid I 261, 278’.
Index, entry for Lord of the Rings, The: Add sub-entry: popularity II 551–4.
Index, entry for Lunar Landscape: Add citation: I 132.
Index, entry for Madlener, Josef: For ‘II 371–2’ read ‘II 571–2’.
Index, entry for Mary Michael, Sister (later Mother): Add citation: I 346.
Index, entry for Massiah-Palmer, W.W.T.: Add reference for I 32.
Index, add entry: Me and My House I 114–15, II 297.
Index, add entry: A Merry Christmas 1940 A Happy New Year 1941 I 245.
Index, entry for Milford-on-Sea: For I ‘758’ read ‘759’.
Index, entry for Minas Morgul, drawing of: For ‘drawing’ read ‘drawings’; for ‘251’ read ‘251, 271’.
Index, entry for Minas Tirith, drawings of: Add citation: II 544.
Index, add entry: Monckton, Lionel I 29.
Index, entry for Moria Gate: Add citation: II 544.
Index, add cross-reference: Motor-cars see Cars.
Index, add entry: ‘Mountain Landscape’ I 146.
Index, cross-reference from Mythology for England to England and Eriol and Aelfwine: Instead of a cross-reference, it would have been more helpful for us to cite II 245–8, 258–62, 441.
Index, entry for ‘Names of the Valar’: Add citation: II 627.
Index, entry for Neave, Jane, l. 7: For II ‘749’ read ‘750’.
Index, entry for New Lodge, Stonyhurst: Change heading from italics to roman, referring to the place rather than the work of art, and add new entry as follows.
Index, add entry: New Lodge, Stonyhurst I 321, II 981.
Index, add entry: 1931–32 N.P.B. Karhu I 162.
Index, add entry: 1932 A Merry Christmas I 166, II 298.
Index, entry for ‘Of the Noldor in Beleriand’: For ‘644’ read ‘II 644–6’.
Index, entry for ‘Númenórean carpet’: For ‘‘Númenórean carpet’’ read ‘Númenórean Carpet’.
Index, add entry: Offenbach, Jacques I 29.
Index, entry for Old Man Willow: Add citation: II 544.
Index, entry for Oliphaunt: Add citation: I 270.
Index, add entry: One Page of the Book of Moria I 243.
Index, entry for Orthanc, drawings of: Add citation: II 544.
Index, entry for Oxford and environs: general: For II ‘693–710’ read ‘693–713’.
Index, entry for Oxford, University of: In first sequence of citations, add: ‘II 713–25 etc.’
Index, entry for Palmer, W.W.T.: For ‘I 32’ read ‘see Massiah-Palmer, W.W.T.’
Index, entry for Paper shortage: Add reference for I 331.
Index, add entry: Piave, Francesco Maria II 616.
Index, add entry: Popularity II 551–4; see also Fan mail; Fandom.
Index, add entry: Prequel (used for ‘The Silmarillion’) I 704.
Index, add entry: Publishers II 796–8; see also names of individual publishers, e.g. George Allen & Unwin.
Index, add entry: ‘Quallington Carpenter’ Eastbury, Berkshire I 34, II 104.
Index, entry for Quest of Erebor, The: For II ‘810–13’ read ‘810–12’.
Index, entry for Reilly, R.J.: Following the first instance of this entry, bottom of col. 1 of I 978 and II 1238, delete five draft or duplicate entries at top of col. 2 (Reincarnation of Elves to second instance of Reilly, R.J.).
Index, add entry: Rhyme I 224.
Index, entry for Rigby, G.S.: For ‘647’ read ‘648’.
Index, entry for Rome, ancient: Add citation: I 106.
Index, entry for Ruins at West End of Whitby Abbey: Add citation: I 20.
Index, entry for Ryan, J.S.: For II ‘349’ read ‘350’.
Index, entry for St Andrews, Scotland: Add citations: I, 20, 34, 226, 701, 777. For sub-entry ‘University of’, add citations: I 211, 226, 327, 610, 627.
Index, entry for St Andrews from Kinkell Brake: Add citation: I 20.
Index, entry for Sidmouth: For II ‘888’ read ‘888–9’.
Index, entry for Sigurd, story of: Add citation: II 217.
Index, entry for Silmarillion, The: Move the citation to I 64 after that for I 58–9.
Index, add entry: ‘Sketch of Whitby’ I 20, II 1101.
Index, entry for Skibniewska, Maria: Add citation: II 648.
Index, entry for Smaug Flies Round the Lonely Mountain: Replace this title with ‘Lonely Mountain, The’ and relocate alphabetically.
Index, entry for Smith, Mr (George Allen & Unwin): Delete. The citation should appear in the entry for ‘Smith, L.G.’
Index, entry for Smith, Nancy: For I ‘654’ read ‘655’.
Index, add entry: Smith, Philip I 748, 771.
Index, entry for Smith of Wootton Major: For ‘I 244’ read, in second sequence, ‘II 244’.
Index, entry for Society of Oxford Home-Students: Add citations: I 167, 191; II 701.
Index, entry for Staffordshire: For ‘454,967’ read ‘454, 967’ (with space).
Index, add entry: Stanburg (Steinborg) I 280.
Index, entry for Steinbeck, John: Delete.
Index, add cross-reference: Suffield, Emily Jane (aunt) see Neave, Jane (née Suffield).
Index, add cross-reference: Suffield, Mabel see Tolkien, Mabel (née Suffield).
Index, add entry: Sullivan, Arthur I 29, 35, II 860.
Index, entry for Summer in Kerry: For ‘II 637’ read ‘I 376, 794, II 432, 637’.
Index, add entry: Suppé, Franz von I 29, 35.
Index, entry for Taur-na-Fúin: For ‘Taur-na-Fúin’ read ‘Taur-na-Fúin (Fangorn Forest)’.
Index, add entry: Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich I 29.
Index, entry for Thompson, Francis, paper on: Add citation: I 51.
Index, entry for Tolkien, Mary Jane (née Stow), l. 1: For ‘Stow’ read ‘Stowe’.
Index, entry for Tolkien, Michael, l. 9: Delete second, extraneous citation to I 747.
Index, entry for Tolkien, Michael George, l. 7: For II ‘749’ read ‘750’.
Index, entries for Turnbull, Miss and Turnbull, R.: Combine, as these are the same person. Thus: ‘Turnbull, Miss R. I 346, 454, 456’.
Index, add entry: Tutors (University of Oxford) II 715, 721, 722, 723.
Index, entry for Vale of Tol Sirion, The: For ‘Vale of Tol Sirion’ read ‘Vale of Sirion’.
Index, entry for Verdi, Giuseppe, Rigoletto: Add citation: II 616.
Index, entry for Vergil: For ‘Vergil I 313’ read ‘Vergil see Virgil’. Both spellings of the name are used in scholarship, and ‘Vergil’ is used in the Companion and Guide in quotations, but ‘Virgil’ seems to be the standard today.
Index, entry for Virgil: For ‘I 36, 37, II 174–5, 226’ read ‘I 28, 36, 37, 38, 261, 278, 313, II 174, 175–6, 226, 357, 962’.
Index, cross-reference for Voyage of Éarendel the Evening Star, The: For ‘Englo’ read ‘Engla’.
Index, entry for Wagner, Richard, Der Ring des Nibelungen: Add citations: II 616, 999. Add sub-entry: ‘Siegfried I 788, II 616’.
Index, add entry: Watling Street I 106, 119.
Index, entry for Wayland the Smith: Add citation: I 106.
Index, add entry: Weber, Carl Maria von II 617.
Index, entry for Whitby: Add citation: I 20; delete continuation for ‘Sketch of Whitby’ (made its own entry and expanded).
Index, entry for Wilderland: For ‘195’ read ‘194’.
Index, add entry: World Science Fiction Convention I 511.
Index, entry for Wudu Wyrtum Fæst: For ‘Wudu Wyrtum Fæst I 146’ read ‘Wudu Wyrtum Fæst (‘Grendel’s Mere’) I 146, II 86’.
Index, entry for Wyke-Smith, E.A.: For II ‘1126–30’ read ‘1130–2’.
Index, entry for Yorkshire Dialect Society: The capital ‘Y’ is missing.
Copyright statement , p. [1]: We stated that The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son is © The J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust 1975, having taken the date from what was then a relatively recent printing of the work, and verified the assignment to the Trust (as we did the whole of our long copyright notice) with the Tolkien Estate. The first printing of Beorhtnoth by George Allen & Unwin was in 1975, in a volume with Tree and Leaf and Smith of Wootton Major. The first printing of Beorhtnoth anywhere, however, was in 1953, in Essays and Studies 1953, published by the English Association. When the work was reprinted by Ballantine Books in 1966 in The Tolkien Reader, the copyright was said to be held by the English Association and dated 1953; but Rayner Unwin determined in correspondence that Tolkien himself held the copyright. The most recent publication of the work, in 2001, states it to be © The J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright Trust 1953, 2001.
Copyright statement, p. [2], l. 13 from bottom: For ‘13 November’ read ‘16 November’.
Copyright statement, p. [5], l. 12 from bottom: For ‘ff. 163’ read ‘f. 163’.
Copyright statement, p. [6], l. 7: For ‘f. 119’ read ‘f. 119v’.
The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide has been published both in the U.K. and the U.S. It is available in a two-volume boxed set, or as separate volumes. To clarify some of the confusion in online listings, vol. 1 (Chronology) has 1,020 pages, vol. 2 (Reader’s Guide) has 1,280 pages, and the book has 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 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.
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