Is There a Book That Explains All the Mysteries of Middle-earth?

Q: Is There a Book That Explains All the Mysteries of Middle-earth?

ANSWER: Do you mean, other than Understanding Middle-earth: Essays on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth? No, not really (and not even my own book — I was being facetious).

There are many books that (seek to) explain some of the mysteries of Middle-earth but there are no books that address them all. Some of the longer books talk about many more mysteries (questions) than others; of those books the longest and most complete may be the 2300-page J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull, but a detailed comparison of their notes to, say, the material that Christopher Tolkien published in Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth and The History of Middle-earth (not to mention John Rateliff’s The History of the Hobbit) would show you that even Hammond and Scull cannot address every point, cover every angle, rebut every argument, explain every disagreement.

In reality, because Middle-earth draws upon so much real history and literary tradition it is simply too big to be “explained in all ways”. There are mysteries of Middle-earth that J.R.R. Tolkien himself seems to have never addressed — such as the names of the majority of the Lords of Andúnië, a large segment of the Princes of Dol Amroth, and the heirs of Vidugavia (to cite just a few examples). Tolkien never published a history of Beorn’s people, and may indeed have never written any history. Nor did he really explain fully the inner workings of the Rings of Power.

So whether you read one of my books, The People’s Guide to J.R.R. Tolkien, or any of dozens of books about Middle-earth, you won’t find any reference that concisely. I and many other people have spent years — decades — discussing and thinking about the mysteries of Middle-earth. I think it’s fair to say that we have not identified them all, much less explained them all. There is still room for more voices in that discussion, but if you’re wondering if there is anything worth reading in order to get started on the quest of understanding Middle-earth, I would say there are many such books.

Pick one, and don’t stop with that.

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