The One hundred and twenty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

Feb 5-9, 1968. Filming for the documentary Tolkien in Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Feb 10, 1939. Tolkien writes Letter 36 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), planning to “make a special effort to finish [LotR] before June 15…”
Feb 11, 1945. Tolkien writes Letter 97 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), displaying “etymological exasperation.”
Feb 13, 1961. Tolkien writes letter 228a (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), with an “apology for being late with one of his translations for the Jerusalem Bible (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).”
Feb 14, 1896. Tolkien dictates a letter to his father (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

“Lines from The Shire. To write poetry was one of Tolkien’s first ambitions” (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [The Critic]

New World Record Set for Sale of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Fine Book & Collector]

Opening time for Tolkien and CS Lewis - Harry Mount on the reopening of the Inklings' Oxford pubs (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [The Oldie; seems to be an almost identical reissue of his 2022 piece (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with the Spectator]

Events & Shows

Review: Lewis and Tolkien at Taproot Theater (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Broadway World]

The Arden Theatre (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) Hobbit - starting in Philly in April - has a cute trailer [Youtube]

The Mineral Area Fine Arts Academy (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Park Hills, Missouri, is also putting on the Hobbit (Feb 14-16 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster))

Robin Reid has the Tolkien Studies Area, PCA, Program (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)(April, New Orleans).

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

Scholarship & Fandom

Jason Fisher has C.S. Lewis by Joel Heck (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Cults, Hobbits, a missing student: Is MSU’s secret forest hideout lost to history? (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)- about the MSU Tolkien Fellowship, ca. 1967-1982.

Tom Shippey on Waltharius, Beowulf, Tolkien, and Viking Humor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Youtube]

Johnny Samson continues his report as an extra with the first season of LotR: RoP with Diary of a City Guard - Part 11 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Turkish Metal Band Ondolindë Releases ‘The Exile of the Noldor’, Inspired By Middle-Earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Metalheadzone; Bandcamp (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Ardacraft has Building Middle-earth in Minecraft – presented live to the Tolkien Society in Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[Youtube]

doubtfulsea has At Their Pleasure (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Stratofanatic has The Most Famous Dragon? (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) And yes, Smaug is in there!

For this edition of the "Roving Ranger" I went through 1,000+ single news items. Curation time: 8½ hrs.

Merchandise & Franchise

Lord of the Rings Online Confirms Public 64-Bit Server Transfer Details, Cut-Off Date (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [MMORPG] | Lord of the Rings Online continues to test its new raid and clarify server transfer questions (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Massively Overpowered]

Tiny Glade (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), a cosy, sandbox city-building game , is inspiring fans to do tiny Bag Ends (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) etc. (Steam)

LotR: Duel for Middle-earth wins gaming trophy in Germany (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Ali Baba Spieleclub; BGG (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

No, Amazon Prime isn’t cancelling The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season three over LGBTQ+ diversity (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Pink News]

Buffy seems to be returning - post from Sarah Michelle Gellar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Facebook; h/t PhantaNews (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Inter alia & Back in the Day

Warner Bros. Discovery Creates Joint Venture for Film and TV Music Rights (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Hollywood Reporter]

Rebecca Yarros sells 12 million copies of her EMPYREAN series in under two years (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Wertzone]

Jurassic World: Rebirth has a trailer (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Big Five publishers band together in legal challenge against library 'book ban' (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[Bookseller]

Legendary Broadway and music artist David Edward Byrd has passed away. [Playbill (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); Wikipedia (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); Deadline (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); PrintMag interview (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

Fun fact: the lead narrative designer to Shadows of Mordor also was lead writer for Horizon: Zero Dawn (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (didn’t expect that; Eurogamer)

Yes, George R.R. Martin has his first peer-reviewed publication - in applied physics: Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

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If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
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Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

As this is 2025 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 for the bi-weekly edition and 6-8 hours for the weekly one.

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