Tolkien Bestiary

[bok]

Was wondering if anyone knows of a detailed FAQ/bible of all the creatues of Middle Earth.
With pictures and some short info, habits and so on.

[Ciryaher]

I don't think there is, but you could try something in the Histories of Middle Earth [HoME]; particularly in The Peoples of Middle Earth, book XII, although I haven't read it.

[Gothmog]

There is "A Tolkien Beastiary" by David Day published by Mitchell Beazley Publishers.

Hope that helps.

[The Mormegil]

There is "Tolkien: The illustrated Encyclopaedia" by David Day. Macmillan Publishing New York, Maxwell Macmillan Canada Toronto.
Copyright 1991 Mitchell Beazley publishers 1991
ISBN 0-02-533431-X.

Macmillan Publishing Co.
866 Third Ave.
New York, NY 10022

Maxwell Macmillan Canada Inc.
1200 Eglinton Avenue East
Suite 200
Don Mills, Ontario M3C 3N1

Much of the artwork in this book is lame in my opinion, but it has a great wealth of information. It was written with the intention being used as a reader's guide. It even contains a chronology of significant dates in the life of J.R.R. Tolkien.

[The Mormegil]

There is "Tolkien: The illustrated Encyclopaedia" by David Day. Macmillan Publishing New York, Maxwell Macmillan Canada Toronto.
Copyright 1991 Mitchell Beazley publishers 1991
ISBN 0-02-533431-X.

Macmillan Publishing Co.
866 Third Ave.
New York, NY 10022

Maxwell Macmillan Canada Inc.
1200 Eglinton Avenue East
Suite 200
Don Mills, Ontario M3C 3N1

Much of the artwork in this book is lame in my opinion, but it has a great wealth of information. It was written with the intention being used as a reader's guide. It even contains a chronology of significant dates in the life of J.R.R. Tolkien.

[Telchar]

Originally posted by Ciryaher
I don't think there is, but you could try something in the Histories of Middle Earth [HoME]; particularly in The Peoples of Middle Earth, book XII, although I haven't read it.

You'll be looking in the wrong books.. HoME XII is mostly about Men, there are some texts about Elves and Dwarves, a short text about the Istari and the matter of Glorfindel.. But nothing about beasts..

[Aerin]

I bought the Tolkien Bestiary about a week ago. What a fabulous book! It describes in detail people and races, and it answering many of my questions. For someone wanting to know the basics, or even for someone who has a fairly firm grip on the history of the peoples of LOTR, it's a fantastic book.

[Walter]

Robert Foster's "The Complete Guide To Middle Earth" is also a good source to find information about creatures as well as about names, places or events.

...and welcome to this Forum, bok

[Eternal Phoenix]

The Complete Guide to Middle Earth is very good.

[Mad Adski]

I've got a number of Tolkien guides and in my mind, the Beastiary is by far the best. But I wasn't aware that it was still in print, the edition I've got is from the early seventies.

[Arthur_Vandelay]

David Day's Tolkien Bestiary is certainly one of the only illustrated Tolkien encyclopaedias I have seen around, but it can be fairly unreliable (in that Day takes a bit of licence with some of the entries e.g "Kraken" for the Watcher in the water at the gate of Moria).

I'd recommend Foster's Complete Guide to Middle-earth (as others have), and also J.E.A. Tyler's Complete Tolkien Companion (which has recently been updated and covers Unfinished Tales material as well). No pictures, but quite thorough.

[meneldor]

The New Tolkien Companion by J.E.A Tyler is aTolkien dictionarywith everything from A to Z from Eru creating till the last day written about in the fourth age. I find it an outstanding book for the quick lookup and lengthy description of everything middle-earth. Truly an outstanding and well done dictionary. I find myself just plain reading it for fun.

[Arthur_Vandelay]

And of course, your own contributions to our growing online Tolkien encyclopaedia, The Tolkien WIKI, are always welcome

[Melko Belcha]

I never trust anything writen by David Day. He makes up alot of stuff and tries to fill in many of the holes in Tolkien's work. I have seen three books of his and each one contains many things that are found nowhere in Tolkien's work. The Complete Guide to Middle-earth by Robert Foster is much better the anything by David Day, while not correct all the time, Foster does not make stuff up like Day does.

[jallan]

Meneldor posted:

The New Tolkien Companion by J.E.A Tyler is aTolkien dictionarywith everything from A to Z from Eru creating till the last day written about in the fourth age. I find it an outstanding book for the quick lookup and lengthy description of everything middle-earth.

The older editions had problems and there is a certain stigma associated with, namely too many minor errors in his entries were exactly the same errors made by Foster which made on suspicious that Tyler had not done much research himself. There were also many other errors and Tyler did not give sources for his information.

I browsed through the new book casually in a bookstore. I found the Ingwë is said to be one of the first-awkened Elves, which is almost certainly not true in Tolkien’s late thought and that the island of Eressëa is shaped like a ship, again not true so far as I know.

I find that Seuward Jensen at Google Cache: Notes on J.E.A. Tyler's The Tolkien Companion also found a number of errors and oddities just in the pages visible on amazon.com.

The fact that no references are given means you can’t even look up what Tyler says. I don’t recommend it.