J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: Scholarship and Critical Assessment

Drout attempts a challenging feat with this work, trying to “bridge gaps and bring together separate branches of knowledge” in Tolkien scholarship, using a large team of expert contributors. Despite a broad target audience, ranging from the serious scholar to fans and gamers, I think he succeeds in bringing together reliable scholarship about Tolkien and his works with interesting analysis of his fictitious worlds. However, it does not fulfil its true potential and although a very interesting and useful resource, it could have been better – especially for the costly price tag.

This extensive reference work is set out in...