Customer Reviews

History of Middle-Earth (The History of Middle-Earth)

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When a friend of mine told me about this book I first thought it was hilarious. Why should I ever need a book that is sole purpose is to index the H.o.M.E? Every one that own the H.o.M.E knows that there is a detailed index in every book of this series.

But I was wrong, This book has immense significance to every Tolkien researcher that want to produce a theory and need reference in several H.o.M.E volumes. for example try the entry "Glamdring" the famous sword that appeared at The Hobbit. With this index I can easily see that the first appearance of Glamdring is in volume 6 - therefore one can understand why Elrond was so indifferent when Gandalf showed him his ancestor's sword! it wasn't in the Legendarium at that time!

That is just a tiny and unimportant example that can show you the amount of time that the combined index will save you when you are doing your research about Tolkien's Legendarium. If I did not had the combined index in this case, I surely had to search over 12 different indexes to make sure that Glamdring is not Legendarium's genuine artifact.

Novice Tolkien's fans will not be interested in this book, It is not for people that didn't read the H.o.M.E or even people that read it but don't do much research. It is very recommended for the Hard core Tolkien's researches that will make the best of it.

It's odd to think of a book that serves as nothing more than an Index to other works, but when one takes into consideration that the Index is to Tolkien's 12-volume History of Middle Earth, it makes a bit of sense.

I've personally been frustrated when doing my own, amateurish reference work. Looking through the index of twelve volumes can be considerable work. This makes it so much easier. I know that I'll delve deeper into those twelve volumes than I have before, and as with all readings of Tolkien, will come out the better for it.