Foster, R. F.

For the millions who have already ventured to Middle-earth, and for the countless others who have yet to embark on the journey here is the one indispensable A-to-Z guide that brings Tolkien's universe to life. Every character from Adaldrida Brandybuck to Zaragamba -- every Hobbit, Elf, Dwarf, Man, Orc, or other resident of Middle-earth is vividly described and accurately located in proper place and time. Colorfully detailed descriptions of geographical entries allow you to pick up the action anywhere in Middle-earth and follow it through all five volumes. Every thing from stars and streams to food and flora, everything found in Middle-earth is alphabetically listed and, when necessary, cross-referenced. Here is truly a master key to Tolkien's Middle-earth. - Publisher.

"W.B. Yeats is usually seen as a great innovator whose extraordinary imagination transformed modern Irish literature, making a decisive break with the past. But what made him the remarkable writer he was? In this book, drawn from the 2009 Clark Lectures, Yeats's prize-winning biographer R.F. Foster returns to the rich seed-bed of nineteenth-century Irish literature to reveal the influences that shaped the poet's unique and powerful voice: romantic history of the Young Ireland movement, the occult and supernatural novels of Sheridan LeFanu, William Carleton's 'peasant fictions', fairy-lore, and folktale collections. The young Yeats consciously mined these traditions and was, Foster shows, an inheritor as much as an inventor."--Jacket.

A history of Ireland from 1600 through 1972, examining its social, cultural, economic, and political factors.

"Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill PC (13 February 1849 ? 24 January 1895) was a British statesman. He was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, and his wife, Lady Frances Vane. He was the father of Winston Churchill, the future wartime Prime Minister, who wrote his father's first major biography."--Wikipedia.

An examination of the poet's life and works, side by side.