| Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth | |
| Author: | Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter, editors |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Subject: | History of Middle-earth |
| Genre: | Tolkien studies |
| Publisher: | Greenwood Press |
| Release Date: | 2000 |
| Media Type: | Hardcover |
| Isbn: | 978-0-313-30530-6 |
| Dewey: | 823/.912 21 |
| Congress: | PR6039.O32 H5727 2000 |
| Oclc: | 41315400 |
Tolkien's Legendarium: Essays on The History of Middle-earth is a collection of scholarly essays edited by Verlyn Flieger and Carl F. Hostetter on the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth, relating to J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction and compiled and edited by his son, Christopher. It was published by Greenwood Press in 2000. That series comprises a substantial part of "Tolkien's legendarium", the body of Tolkien's mythopoeic writing that forms the background to his The Lord of the Rings and which Christopher Tolkien summarized in his construction of The Silmarillion.
It includes a bibliography of works by Christopher Tolkien compiled by Douglas A. Anderson.
Tolkien's Legendarium won the 2002 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies.[1]
John S. Ryan, reviewing the book for VII, called it a "luminous companion" to the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth, and "clearly indispensable".[2] Ryan stated that it "pays a much merited tribute"[2] to Christopher Tolkien's six decades or more of work on his father's writings, indeed from his childhood as one of the original audience for The Hobbit. Ryan describes the 14 essays as "carefully argued", noting among other things Bratman's description of the 4 styles Tolkien used in the Legendarium as "Annalistic, Antique, Appendical, and Philosophical".[2]
The Tolkien scholar Douglas C. Kane, while welcoming the 2021 book The Nature of Middle-earth, writes that Hostetter "appears to overstep his role as editor" by presenting the materials according to his personal point of view. In particular, Kane states that Hostetter wrongly applies Tolkien's remark that The Lord of the Rings was fundamentally religious and Catholic to the whole of the legendarium. Kane calls this contrary to Christopher Tolkien's editorial practice, and "a blatant statement of intent". Kane quotes Verlyn Flieger's remark that Tolkien's work reflects the two sides of his nature; the work can be seen both "as Catholic [and] not Christian."[3]
The Tolkien Society called Charles Noad's essay "a critically important document" on the interpretation of The Silmarillion.[4]