Richard C. West (1944−2020) was one of the pioneers of serious Tolkien scholarship. He was the founder of the Tolkien Society at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. West is known particularly for his invaluable resource Tolkien Criticism: An Annotated Checklist. Among West’s other scholarly works, his 1975 essay, ​“The Interlace Structure of The Lord of the Rings” (in Jared Lobdell’s collection A Tolkien Compass) has proven to have particularly long-lasting impact. West had a long affiliation with the Mythopoeic Society.