Commentator Gary Joiner has a history lesson on "asterisk reality" and a great practitioner of it, J.R.R. Tolkien, in his editing capacity at the Oxford English Dictionary.
History Matters: On asterisk reality and the Oxford English Dictionary
Gary Joiner is a cartographer and an associate professor of history at LSU in Shreveport. He is the author or editor of 12 books including “Shiloh and the Western Campaign of 1862,” “One Damn Blunder From Beginning to End: The Red River Campaign in 1864,” “Through the Howling Wilderness: The Red River Campaign and Union Failure in 1864,” “Red River Steamboats,” and “Mr. Lincoln's Brown Water Navy: Mississippi Squadron.”