The One-hundred and third Roving Ranger

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Life and Works

June 15, 1967. Tolkien records verses for the record Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
June 17, 1968. Tolkien falls down the stairs of 76 Sandfield Road (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and breaks his leg.
June 18, 1914. The Chequers Clubbe (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), founded by Tolkien, meet to have dinner.
June 22, 1911. Tolkien and several other cadets of King Edward's School (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)'s Officer Training Corps (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) line the route at the Coronation of George V (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) stands near Buckingham Palace.
June 23, 1945. Tolkien is elected Merton Professor of English Language and Literature (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
June 25, 1957. Tolkien writes Letter 200 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). “I note your remarks about Sauron.”
June 26, 1968. Tolkien writes Letter 305 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). “My fall has, all the same, proved disastrous for my work and arrangements at this time, and even with good luck I cannot hope to emerge from chaos now till the end of August at the earliest.” See above; the Tolkiens were moving.
June 27, 1972. Vera Chapman (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) meets Tolkien. He agrees to become The Tolkien Society (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)'s Honorary Presiden (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)t.
June 28, 1919. The Treaty of Versailles is signed and the First World War officially ends.

A Welsh (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)translation of The Hobbit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is now available - and ONLY - on pre-order (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). More information with [Nation Cymru (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)] | The Louxembourgish edition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is also available (again). [TCG]

Tolkien has been commemorated with a memorial at Pembroke College (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Oxford. | Tolkien Society notice (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Pembroke College notice (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | BBC notice (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) | Gabriel Schenk has some videos (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Instagram] | I had extensively written about this last year for my members at Steady (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

I have to include this beautiful piece by Matěj Čadil as Leaf by Niggle is my favourite Tolkien story at the moment.

All dates are taken from Tolkien Gateway (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Events & Shows

New York Tolkien fans, beware! The Grolier Club (on 47 East 60th Street) has the exhibition "Hardly Harmless Drudgery: Landmarks in English Lexicography" May 2 – July 27, 2024 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), including a bust of Tolkien, a copy of A Middle English Vocabulary, a Hobbit, and a personal letter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) by Tolkien [TCG letter entry #310 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

And NYC is the place to be this weekend with the NYTC happening again (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Have fun at ideally named Baruch College!

The Chicago rendition of the Lord of the Rings Musical has announced its cast (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The United States card-gaming community is having a premiere for a game 20+ years old: the Lure of Middle-earth (ME:CCG and LotR:LCG international annual event in Germany) has spawned another, this time as part of Pacificon Game Expo (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in San Jose, CA (September 2024). All available info here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Dutch Tolkien Society, Unquendor, has its Slotfeest on June 21-23 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

For all events (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Scholarship and Fandom

Dimitra Fimi recently shared this: “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1953 W. P. Ker Memorial Lecture: An Updated Chronology and Related Findings (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Taylor & Francis Online]

Oronzo Cilli has another post: Tolkien's Proposed Translation of Old Norse Egilssaga (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The 2024 Mythopoeic Awards (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) Finalists have been announced (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Manchester University Press has an upcoming book A book of monsters: Promethean horror in modern literature and culture (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), including the chapter: Orc-talk: Spectres of Marx in Tolkien's Middle-Earth. I am inclined to believe this is David Ashford’s article from the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts (29, 1:101, 2018:) “Orc talk” (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [paywall; institutional access].

Rob Maslen has a substantial piece on Gerald Bullett, The Spanish Caravel (1927), reissued as The Happy Mariners (1935) (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - and an illustration that feels very familiar.

I am not really not sure what to make of the “headline”: From Tarzan to Tolkien: Controlling the Language Proficiency Level of LLMs for Content Generation (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [arxiv.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Cornell University]

RTÉ rather dramatically added some ‘evil eye’ to its short post New 'evil eye' piranha relative is named after Tolkien villain (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) but you might rather try the actual scientific article (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and have a look for yourself at Myloplus sauron.

Douglas A. Anderson has a note on one of Tolkien’s essential statements (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Franchise and Merchandise

LotR: The War of the Rohirrim has shown 20 mins. at Annecy (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). TORn has a lot of interviews on this (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). And Peter Jackson has joined the film as executive producer.

New Zealand’s Tree of the Year (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is the Walking Tree. “Its resemblance to one of Tolkien’s sentient, tree-like Ents has earned it the affectionate nickname.” [Media info as .docx (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

The new face of Adar: The Rings of Power star teases the orc leader's role in season 2 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Entertainment Weekly] | Empire Magazine Confirms Annatar Name In The Rings of Power Season 2 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [TORn; Empire]

The Lord of the Rings Luxury Playing Cards (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)Kickstarter [Pt. 3] is always hilarious - the money invested is a gazillion times the amount asked for.

Netflix Reveals 14 New Video Games Joining Slate, Including ‘Lord Of The Rings’ Mobile Title (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (incl. Tales of the Shire) [Deadline; see also The Verge (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for trailer]

TORn has an interview with the producers (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of Tales of the Shire.

Inter alia & Back in the day

Ursula K. Le Guin’s home will become a place for writers’ residencies (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Literary Hub]

Certainly one of the oddest things on the web, NationStates (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) was originally published to support a publication and is now a nation simulation game that has been running for 20+ years. Create your nation, see what happens. The Gulf of Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) lives in anarchy.

Star Trek received the institutional Peabody Award (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Official website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Handheld Press will closing by mid-2025 so now is the time to buy some ‘forgotten’ yet most excellent books (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

A mural on a pub (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Oxford includes mentions to Inspector Morse, Carroll and Tolkien characters. [BBC; the Library Pub (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

The first ever HUGO was bought at auction by the convention that handed it out (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Kurd Laßwitz Award winners have been announced (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [science fiction novels; Germany]

Disney+ and other players are ceasing production of physical media (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - the idea behind is to better control their IP and keep customers chained to digital offerings they can change at a moment’s notice and raise prices to whatever and whenever they like it. Literally owning a film or a series is quickly becoming impossible.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, the animated Netflix series, has a date announcement trailer (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (h/t PhantaNews (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)).

China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Wired; h/t Wertzone (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

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As this is 2024 I would like to note that this newsletter is 100% human-made, curated by me, Marcel R. Bülles. This also holds true for everything I write with my blog and here at Steady. Also, the average time of curating this newsletter ranges from 12-16 hours.