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J.R.R. Tolkien: Six Decades of Criticism (Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature)

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This chronologically-organized bibliography provides a list (sometimes descriptive, sometimes not) of Tolkien criticism up through 1984. It also contains brief bibliographical entries for Tolkien's own published works. Needless to say, the overwhelming majority of listings pertain to Tolkien's fiction-- especially his masterwork, _The Lord of the Rings_. However, it does include reviews and responses to his more scholarly publications (for example, it lists reviews of his and Gordon's edition of _Sir Gawain & the Green Knight_ as well as responses to his articles "Chaucer as Philologist" and "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"). In terms of its comprehensiveness, this book is far more thorough than any other Tolkien criticism bibliographies (e.g Richard C. West's). Johnson is to be praised for including articles that appeared in the major Tolkien fanzines (Mythlore, Orcrist, Amon Hen, Minas Tirith Evening Star, Seven, etc.) and for including information on which university libraries actually have these periodicals. However, it should be noted that her survey of these fanzines is not comprehensive-- reviews of secondary works about Tolkien that appeared in fanzines are not generally listed and there are some even more obscure items that got left out here. Some of those missing, in fairness, are really minor self-published items and are extremeley rare and obscure-- things that only had 100-issue runs and only lasted 1-2 issues. While unlikely to be found even in excellent research libraries, many of them are available for consultation in the Marquette University Special Collections (which has a very large collection of Tolkieniana). If a second edition of this essential bibliography ever appears (and one should-- it's been almost two decades since the first one!)-- I hope it includes not only post-1984 material, but also some more fanzine content from these obscurities.