The evolution of the stories of Tolkien’s ‘Silmarillion’ mythology is traced in entries for each chapter of the ‘Quenta Silmarillion’ in the published (1977) Silmarillion. Each entry begins with a synopsis or summary of the published chapter, then traces the evolution of this part of the larger ‘Silmarillion’ from its earliest appearance.
We have assumed that our reader has some knowledge of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, so that we may refer (say) to ‘Bilbo’ or ‘Frodo’ without further explanation. The Silmarillion, as the central work among Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth, should be as well known, but is not; nonetheless, it has not been feasible to gloss in the Companion and Guide, from entry to entry, every mention of every character or place in the mythology, these being legion. For assistance in this respect, we advise the reader to consult Robert Foster’s invaluable Complete Guide to Middle-earth. It also should be noted that in writing his stories Tolkien sometimes altered the names of characters, places, etc. from text to text, or applied multiple names within a story, e.g. Melko > Melkor > Morgoth, and in our accounts of Tolkien’s fiction we refer to names as he used them in the particular text under discussion.
The titles of several books about Tolkien frequently referred to in the Companion and Guide are abbreviated for convenience:
The Art of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (2011) as Art of The Hobbit.
The Art of The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (2015) as Art of The Lord of the Rings.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (1995; corrected edn. 1998) as Artist and Illustrator.
J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter (1977) as Biography.
Brothers and Friends: The Diaries of Major Warren Hamilton Lewis, edited by Clyde S. Kilby and Marjorie Lamp Mead (1982) as Brothers and Friends.
J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond with the assistance of Douglas A. Anderson (1993) as Descriptive Bibliography.
The Inklings: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends by Humphrey Carpenter (1978) as The Inklings.
J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment, edited by Michael D.C. Drout (2006) as J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia.
Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien, selected and edited by Humphrey Carpenter, with the assistance of Christopher Tolkien (1981), as Letters.
J.R.R. Tolkien: Life and Legend by Judith Priestman for the Bodleian Library (1992) as Life and Legend.
Pictures by J.R.R. Tolkien, with a foreword and notes by Christopher Tolkien (1979; 2nd edn. 1992), as Pictures.
The Lord of the Rings: A Reader’s Companion by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (2005; 3rd edn. 2014) as Reader’s Companion.
The Tolkien Family Album by John and Priscilla Tolkien (1992) as The Tolkien Family Album.
In the Chronology BBC radio broadcast times are given according to the schedule applying to London and the South-east. Also in the Chronology, where the direction See note is given, the reader should consult the section of explanatory or supplemental notes beginning on p. 817.
Although selected cross-references are provided in the main sequence of boldfaced headings in the Reader’s Guide, for full direction to the many names, titles, and topics mentioned in this book the reader is advised to consult the index.
An asterisk (*) before names, titles, words, or phrases in the Chronology indicates that a corresponding entry may be found in the Guide; and in using the Guide, the reader may wish to consult the Chronology for a more detailed view of a particular segment of time. We have also used asterisks in the Reader’s Guide for internal cross-referencing, but selectively – not, for example, applying an asterisk to every instance of the name ‘Oxford’ (the city or the university), only where it seemed potentially most useful.
In general, we have applied the recommendations of the Oxford Style Manual, except where guided by personal bibliographic or typographic taste. Citations within the text are shortened appropriately; full citations are given in the general bibliography (‘Works Consulted’) in the Reader’s Guide. Omissions from quoted matter, except for brief extracts, are indicated by ellipses (…).
As in the original edition of this book, we apologize for typographical errors and inconsistencies of practice or form. We have tried to spot these during writing, revision, and indexing, but in a work of this length and complexity (now even longer and more complex than it was) they seem inevitable. No doubt we will hear about them from readers, and will acknowledge genuine errors and attempt to correct them in the appropriate pages of our website, www.hammondandscull.com.
Unless otherwise stated, the opinions expressed in this book are our own.
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WE ARE PLEASED to be able to prepare this much revised and enlarged text more than ten years after the first edition of our Companion and Guide. By 2016 stocks of the book were exhausted, and we agreed with our editors at HarperCollins, David Brawn and Chris Smith, who thought that a new edition would be better than a reprint. Because the existing Reader’s Guide was already more than 1,200 pages, and we estimated off the cuff that we would be able to add to it at least 100 pages (in the event, more than 300), it was clear that the new edition would need to expand from two volumes to three, with the Chronology remaining one volume. And because the Chronology itself was long, and would itself grow by more than fifty pages, we needed to move appended material (family trees and bibliographies) previously in the Chronology to the end of the expanded Reader’s Guide.
There was no lack of new material to be considered. In the decade since 2006 at least a standard shelf of new works or new editions of works by Tolkien were published, and at least three shelves of works about him (with no sign of this ceasing anytime soon). And as we reviewed our existing text, we saw that some portions needed to be enlarged, and a few points reconsidered. We also saw that here and there we could improve readability by dividing long paragraphs.
As in 2006, we had to choose not only what to include in our coverage but what to omit. Was an event of sufficient moment? Was a person or place of sufficient importance in Tolkien’s life? No doubt some of our necessarily subjective decisions will seem arbitrary, perhaps even to us once this new edition is in print. We might, for instance, have included a biographical article for Ursula Dronke (née Brown) as we did for Stella Mills, both students of Tolkien, but Mills was demonstrably close to Tolkien and his family, and in the end one has to set some limits, according to one’s judgement at the moment. In any case, we have added a number of articles to the Reader’s Guide, for persons associated with Tolkien, influences and analogues, and concepts such as ‘authorial presence’ and Tolkien’s manner of composition in writing.
At the beginning of our preface to the Companion and Guide we state 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 cite works of reference or criticism upon which we drew for our text or which expand upon what we wrote, by authors whose points of view may differ one from the other. In doing so, we have tried not to impose a particular interpretation – in cases of interpretation