Middle-earth canon

The term Middle-earth canon, also called Tolkien's canon, is used for the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien regarding Middle-earth as a whole. The term is also used in Tolkien fandom to promote, discuss and debate the idea of a consistent fictional canon within a given subset of Tolkien's writings.

The terms have been used by reviewers, publishers, scholars, authors and critics such as John Garth, Tom Shippey, Jane Chance and others to describe the published writings of J. R. R. Tolkien on Middle-earth as a whole. Other writers look to the entire body of work of the author as a "Tolkien canon", rather than a subset defined by the fictional "Middle-earth" setting.