David Day
David Day is a Canadian author who has written a number of books, many of them are Tolkien-related. Primarily known for his reference books, starting with A Tolkien Bestiary in 1978, Day's books have sold over 3 million copies, and have been published in over 120 different editions in over 20 languages.
Despite the selling numbers, Day is notable for his tendency to fabricate false or inaccurate information in his writings, and his books have been repeatedly criticized by the Tolkien community.
Day rejects the charge of inaccuracy, though he accepts that his reference books have been repackaged and reprinted by publishers under different titles.
Reputation within the Tolkien community
The Tolkien Society does not recommend any of Day's books in their suggested readings (preferring Robert Foster's The Complete Guide to Middle-earth instead) whilst David Bratman, editor of the Tolkien Studies journal, makes the same suggestion that David Day's books are "Not Recommended". Troels Forchammer noted in his blog that "Day is infamous in Tolkien circles for his creative re-interpretation of Tolkien's work" whilst Michael Martinez made the sterner observation that "In Tolkien scholarship the worst insult one could deliver at any point for many years was equivalent to 'That sounds like something David Day wrote'."
Tolkien Meta-FAQ author Steuard Jensen said about A Tolkien Bestiary that "it is not wise to rely on this book for information on Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth" and that "it is important to be aware that a considerable number of other details in those vivid descriptions were invented by Day himself with little or no justification in the texts, and that these extrapolations are not distinguished from the justified facts in any way". In particular, A Tolkien Bestiary (and its derivative Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia) has been specifically criticised for its entries on Beren, Giants, long-worms, Sauron, Telcontari.
Most of the criticism have been to the encyclopedia style books. More recently The Battles of Tolkien has been described saying:
Having acknowledged that the book contains fewer factual errors than earlier books by Day, the reviewer describes it as "not a work of reference, but an attempt at analysis" and describing the analysis as "a bunch of clichéd theories that failed to stretch beyond a child pointing at things and exclaiming 'This is like that!'."
A problematic map of Arda
A Tolkien Bestiary (1979) and later works includes a (unfortunately widespread) map that intentionally gives an overall view of all the lands over all the ages in a composite image. It include the Lamps, the Trees Of The Valar, Númenor, Beleriand, and the Undying Lands which never existed all at the same time. The map is criticized for differences from Tolkien's own maps such as "Map V" from the Ambarkanta maps.
Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia has Geography section called "The Evolution of Arda" that has 8 maps that does show the evolution of the world map throughout the ages.
The Tolkien community generally steers readers away from the Composite map and instead towards The Atlas of Middle-earth by Karen Wynn Fonstad (1981, revised 1991).
Oxonmoot controversy
David Day attended Oxonmoot 2004 yet failed to pay for his attendance. In the minutes of The Tolkien Society committee meeting held on 30 October 2004 it states that:
Four months later in the minutes of a committee meeting held on the 26th February 2005, it is recorded:
There are no other recorded incidents of The Tolkien Society blacklisting individuals from attending their events.
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 25/05/2026.
