TOLKIEN AND THE LORD OF THE RINGS:
A Guide to Middle-Earth
By Colin Duriez. Azure. 296 pages. £5.99
ISBN 1 902694 22 8
Who is the real hero of the 20th century's most popular book? Fans of J.R.R. Tolkien will need no urging to enjoy a revised handbook to his best-sellers and some of his professional writing.
Part 1 summarises the life, work and friendships of this extraordinary Oxford professor, adding a brief chronology. Part 2 summarises The Lord of the Rings and its own internal time-chart, relating it to 'The Silmarillion'. Part 3 is an 85-page A-Z of names and events, followed by a similar alphabet of themes in Part 4 where interpretation replaces cataloguing. The final short sections introduce real-life people and places, with Tolkien's main writings and a bibliography.
