This bibliography deals with the creative legacy of J. R. R. Tolkien and its study in world scholarship. Part One contains references to the published works by Tolkien himself, Part Two provides information on research papers and reference works on various topics.
To list all the editions of works by Tolkien is already quite a difficult task, so many times they were published even in English alone, especially The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. That is why Part One “Primary Sources” in this guide contains only a selective bibliography of Tolkien’s writings. It represents virtually all of his works that I know, but is limited to the most important editions of them (mainly to the first printings, for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—to the first edition of each version). References are provided also to all the volumes of The History of Middle-earth series and to all the publications of Tolkien’s drafts in Parma Eldalamberon and Vinyar Tengwar. The list of primary sources is preceded by a review article that describes shortly all the main components of the body of published works by Tolkien. Part Two “Research Literature” is a traditional bibliographic list divided into topical sections.
This bibliography omits the voluminous body of literary criticism because I tried to concentrate mostly on research literature and reference works. Dissertations (especially master’s theses) are listed only selectively; the overall number of such works is apparently much higher. I did not include into the bibliography the papers on films by Peter Jackson either, except those whose authors compare his films and original Tolkien’s writings. All the references excluding those in the footnotes are designed according to the Russian bibliographic standard (GOST 7.0.5-2008) that is similar to Chicago style, but uses the prescribed punctuation like in the International Standard Bibliographic Description.
Hope this bibliography will help the researches, especially the beginners, to navigate the huge body of available literature. I am going to add new information at least once a year; each update will also be posted in the blog. You may send me any corrections and additional information via this website 🙂
Download the bibliography (PDF, 1 Mb).