Wayne G. Hammond is an American bibliographer, rare-books librarian and Tolkien scholar, born in 1953, one of the foremost authorities on the life and work of J.R.R. Tolkien.
A career librarian - long associated with the Chapin Library of rare books at Williams College, which he came to head - he brought a bibliographer's precision to Tolkien studies, beginning with his standard descriptive bibliography of Tolkien's writings. In 1994 he married the scholar Christina Scull, and almost all his major work since has been a joint endeavour with her; together they are regarded as leading veterans of the field.
Their books have become indispensable to serious readers of Tolkien: J.R.R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator, a study of his paintings and drawings that won a Mythopoeic Award; The Lord of the Rings: A Reader's Companion, a page-by-page commentary on the novel; and the vast, meticulous J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, a reference work chronicling his life and writings in extraordinary detail. Most recently the pair edited The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Careful, exhaustive and deeply knowledgeable, Hammond and Scull have done as much as anyone to map the full extent of Tolkien's achievement.
