This is an A-Z guide to the flora and fauna of Middle-earth, first published in 1979. Day's sources are The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and his own imagination, and he can be accused of being a little too liberal in his interpretation: where, for example, does a "Kraken" appear in Tolkien's work? Although the book is less reliable as a Tolkien reference than similar works by Robert Foster and J. E. A. Tyler, it does include an impressive series of monochrome and full-colour illustrations. One for the collector; definitely not one for the purists.