Robert Foster "The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth" Limited Edition, Leather-Bound Collector's Edition [Sealed]

This limited edition combines Robert Foster's definitive encyclopedic work with Easton Press’s luxury craftsmanship. A prestigious companion for your Tolkien library.

Easton Press, Norwalk, CT. Robert Foster "The Complete Guide to Middle Earth: Tolkien's World From A to Z". Limited Edition. Uniform forest green leather bindings with distinct cover designs and decorations. Luxuriously bound in full genuine leather. As New, sealed in the original shrink-wrap without any flaws.

The Complete Guide to Middle-Earth

The Complete Guide to Middle-earth: from The Hobbit to The Silmarillion is a reference book for J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, compiled and edited by Robert Foster. It was first published in 1971 under the title A Guide to Middle-earth. A revised and enlarged edition under the title The Complete Guide to Middle-earth was published in 1978. It received a third edition in 2001.

The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, published in 1978 was a major expansion of A Guide to Middle-earth, at almost twice its length, with coverage of The Silmarillion, which came out in 1977. However, as it does not include information on post-Silmarillion material (i.e. Unfinished Tales and the history of composition series The History of Middle-earth), the 1978 edition contains some assertions supported by later publications, and some that are contradicted. For example, the Star of Elendil jewel (the Elendilmir) is identified with the Star of the Dúnedain given to Samwise Gamgee, something refuted by Christopher Tolkien. On the other hand, Foster proposes that Gandalf and Olórin are one and the same; this is stated directly by Gandalf in The Two Towers.

A revised edition (ISBN 0-345-44976-2) was published in 2001, in time for Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

A new hardback edition illustrated by Ted Nasmith, including standard and slipcased versions, was released in September 2022.

Features

Includes all the classic Easton Press qualities:

* Premium Leather
* Silk Moire Endleaves
* Distinctive Cover Design
* Hubbed Spine, Accented in Real 22KT Gold
* Satin Ribbon Page Marker
* Gilded Page Edges
* Long-lasting, High Quality Acid-neutral Paper
* Smyth-sewn Pages for Strength and Durability
* Beautiful Illustrations

J.R.R. Tolkien

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, and held these positions from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.

After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.

While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the tremendous success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings ignited a profound interest in the fantasy genre and ultimately precipitated an avalanche of new fantasy books and authors. As a result, he has been popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature and is widely regarded as one of the most influential authors of all time.

Robert Foster

Robert Foster (born 1949 in Brooklyn) is an American author, scholar, and medievalist best known for compiling and writing The Complete Guide to Middle-earth, the first exhaustive, encyclopedic reference book covering the fictional universe of J.R.R.

Tolkien.Biography & BackgroundEducation: Foster earned his Ph.D. in English and Medieval Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Academic Career: He subsequently taught in the English Department at Rutgers College, where he served as an assistant professor.