This Saturday - Live chat with Robert Foster and Ted Nasmith - The Complete Guide to Middle-earth

I have been using this great book since the late 80s or early 90s. It’s apparent to all readers who spend a good amount of time with it just how accurate it really is, which is not to be taken for granted (David Day, anyone?). The one word that people always use to describe it is “indispensable.” And I would have to say, I will be passing on this new edition since it does away with the page references, which are so vital to its usefulness. It was recently mentioned (in the July ed. of Beyond Bree) that where the Complete Guide really shines is as a reader’s companion to The Silmarillion. I have a love/hate relationship with the fact that it has never been “updated” to include works past The Silmarillion. I love it as an accurate snapshot of the canon of Middle-earth as it stood at the end of the 70s; just as I really enjoy reading the original Guide for an accurate snapshot of the canon before The Silmarillion. But it would be interesting to know if Bob has ever thought of updating it at all, to include The Children of Húrin or some other works in whole or in part. Or how he would go about it if starting from scratch today.

All good questions! You should join the live session and ask!


Are you sure they have removed the page references? In the 2003 edition those were moved to the back of the book, because they were given for so many editions they overwhelmed the main entries. I think it is the same in this new edition, Trotter can you confirm?

The Index is present in the 2003 and 2022 edition, it has been updated for the 2022 edition. The original edition did not have an Index.

Ah, thank you! I was not aware of that. Not my favorite solution, but definitely not as bad as I thought.

Please, how can audience members ask questions? I am enjoying the chat a lot!

Ana wrote:

Please, how can audience members ask questions? I am enjoying the chat a lot!

Just now seeing this, sorry you weren't able to ask your question.

For those who missed the live recording, we will upload it to the YouTube channel as soon as we can.

Thanks Mr. Underhill. I didn't see any comment options while using the app, I could only watch. Perhaps I am a bit useless with apps, but it was great all the same. So lucky to have Robert and Ted. I was going to ask if there will be signed copies of the book available.

It was good to watch and listen to. I didn’t see an option to use for asking questions or commenting either. There were a few tech issues live as well so I’ll watch again on YouTube to see if I missed much. Thanks to all concerned ???

Thank you, Jeremy, Andrew and Chad, it was an interesting and entertaining talk. Unfortunately I have only heard and seen bits and pieces, as my laptop kept shutting down. Apparently riverside.fm is overtaxing it and it then overheats. While it was down and I waited for it to cool down, I tried my mobile, but there the site insists on installing the app, and the app then said that the “event had not yet started” and blinked out — and that happened repeatedly between the moments I could listen in on my laptop.

That also quashed my tentative plans for a question. Which was if some light could be thrown on the strange behaviour of Niekas 21. For in A Guide to Middle-earth there is a note that part of the work was earlier published in Niekas 16 to 21, and this has been continued in The Complete Guide to Middle-earth. But the installment in Niekas 21 has proven to be elusive.

Nowadays the issues of Niekas are readily available on the internet, on fanac.org, as has been discussed at length elsewhere on this forum. And there one can find indeed Niekas 18, June 30 1966 to Niekas 20, Fall 1968, as stated in that note, with installments of ‘A Glossary of Middle-earth’ in each. But not Niekas 21 © 1969, as stated in the note.

The only Niekas 21 that can be found on the internet dates from 1977! That issue contains no installment of ‘A Glossary of Middle-earth’, which is not surprising, given that A Guide to Middle-earth had by then been published by both Mirage Press and Ballantine Books. In fact, Niekas 21 of 1977 does not make any mention of either the ‘Glossary’ or the Guide, or of The Complete Guide to Middle-earth that would be published in 1978.

Now I have been curious for many years, whether Niekas 21 of 1969 is a ghost issue,
containing the first installment of ‘Things’ (the installment in Niekas 20, ‘Geography, concluded’, states at the end: “The entries for name-bearing things are scheduled to start in the next issue.”) but never (officially) published. Or whether its mention in the note in A/The Complete Guide to Middle-earth is just a ghost reference, referring to something that never existed.

Thus I was thinking of asking Bob Foster whether he could remember what had happened there, and why the note on earlier publication refers to an issue of Niekas that seems not to exist. But having heard Bob’s introduction on how the Guide to Middle-earth started, and some fragments of his answers that I did manage to pick up, I doubt very much whether he would be able to recollect these technical details after so long, certainly not off the top of his head.