A Tolkien Bestiary

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

The devoted readers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s massive work of fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, are legion, and they will welcome this splendid addition to the master’s legacy. His was the most ambitious and complex mythology ever created by one individual, spanning measureless ages and peopled by the innumerable creations of his fertile imagination. Here, in a magnificently illustrated “bestiary,” which, despite its title, does not limit itself to the identification of the fauna of this magic world but includes the flora as well, is a catalogue of Tolkien’s teeming world. Eleven celebrated artists have contributed to the volume, and many of the plates are in glowing colour. Of particular note are the many panoramic scenes illustrating incidents from The Red Book of Westmarch, from which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were allegedly translated. This is a work of interest almost exclusively to Tolkien fans, but for them, indispensable.