The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion (2005) is a nonfiction book by the scholars Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. It is an annotated reference to J. R. R. Tolkien's heroic romance, The Lord of the Rings. The Reader's Companion was designed to accompany the revised one-volume 50th anniversary edition of The Lord of the Rings (Houghton Mifflin, 2004; ISBN 0-618-51765-0). It is available in both hardcover and paperback, and not to be confused with Hammond and Scull's similarly named 2006 reference book The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. Scholars and critics have welcomed the book as providing inside information on the construction of The Lord of the Rings. In David Bratman's view, it succeeds admirably as an annotated edition. Laura Schmidt describes the existence of a single affordable volume with so much reference information as remarkable. Source: Wikipedia (en)