The Ninety-fourth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

December 9, 1959. Tolkien writes Letter #222 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on his translation of SGGK and Pearl, promising to have it ready soon - published with Sir Orfeo in 1975.
December 12, 1962. Tolkien is interviewed by John Bowen for the BBC programme Bookstand. Odd questions to the point of absurdity still leave us with one of the few recordings of Tolkien himself [Facebook]

December 13, 1967. German translator Margaret Carroux (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) meets up with Tolkien in Oxford to talk about The Lord of the Rings.
December 15, 1937. Tolkien writes a letter to Arthur Ransome (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), mentioning “sales are not very great” on The Hobbit. 😂
December 17, 1910. Tolkien is awarded an Open Classical Exhibition for classical languages to Exeter College.
December 18, 1949. Tolkien writes to Naomi Mitchison (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), telling her about finishing The Lord of the Rings after twelve years. #122
December 21, 1927. Father Christmas writes a letter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to Tolkien's children.

Reading suggestion By the way - if you needed a great starting page on all things J.R.R. Tolkien you might want to visit his Library Thing (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) author page (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) instead of Wikipedia (even though that is not half bad).

A scan of the Tolkien Family Album has been made available via Archive.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Events & Shows

Jordan Rannells of the Soundscapes project has brought together a great team to do A Long-Expected Soundscape: Holiday Special (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (Dec 10).

The touring Magic of Middle-earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) exhibition continues to draws crowds.

The Living Knowledge Network (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) via the British Library has a wide range of places and spaces in the UK for the next couple of months accompanying the Realms of Imagination (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) exhibition, many of them available online; the next major event is Dec 9 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
Please note the BL is still suffering from a recent ransomware attack, the latest news are available here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). And according to this Yahoo post (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) sensitive data of all UK authors might have been stolen.

Why this very old piece (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) crossed my path I do not know but back in the day the director of the London version of the LotR musical went to see Tolkien’s grave:

"I visited his grave in Oxford to apologise and get his seal of approval. I apologised in case he didn't like the idea of a stage show," the director said.

EstelCon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is happening in Spain.

The Dutch TS is having its Joelfest (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Dec 16.

Scholarship and Fandom

The Athrabeth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) podcast did an interview with Tom Hillman on his upcoming book.

David Bratman has the content (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of the upcoming Tolkien Studies volume (20).

John D. Rateliff has a few thoughts (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on the Italian exhibition, mentioning also the Tolkien Guide’s discussion of the exhibition catalogue. He also has some interesting points on the recently unearthed correspondence (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) between Tolkien and Katharine Briggs. In addition to that he reminds us (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of a list of people obviously important to JRRT.

The Tolkien Society has issued a Call for Papers for the 2024 Seminar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

I am happy to see Eric Mueller-Harder (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has posted again with tolkienists.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) after a very long hiatus.

Dimitra Fimi has shared her paper Tolkien and the Fairies: Faith and Folklore (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

John Garth talked to Alan Sisto about his upcoming book, Tolkien’s Mirror (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Youtube]

There are the oddest of places when The Lord of the Rings pop up - including reddit relationship moments (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [P.S. I am not in the business of giving relationship advice but there are too many red flags with that guy. No love for LotR excuses that kind of behaviour!]

Speaking of reddit, you might like to join the recently opened Tolkien Guide reddit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Robin Reid is working on a bibliography for Feminist/Gender/Queer Tolkien Scholarship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [free registration needed with Substack] She also has the Call for Papers (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) for the Tolkien Studies Area with the PCA (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Ted Nasmith recently shared his latest commission piece on Facebook, “Seeking Directions; The Witch King and Saruman”:

If you ever happen to visit Oxford and Summertown in particular you might want to have a look at the award-winning Tolkien-inspired art installation Between the Sun and the Moon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [thetolkienist.com]

Franchise and Merchandise

Lovely to see when people are inspired by films to change their lives - for the better: ‘I left the cinema, walked home and announced I was moving’: films that made people emigrate. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Guardian]

20 years on, a transformed New Zealand looks back at ‘Lord of the Rings’ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [LA Times]

The franchise tourism in New Zealand is reaching new heights with the opening of Bagshot Row (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

One of the most evil companies in the world named after an important object in Tolkien’s stories, Palantir, has just now closed a deal with the UK’s NHS. The Times asks: Palantir’s NHS deal: are we handing our health data to Big Brother? [paywall]; Palantir Wins Major U.K. Health Contract Despite Criticism (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [NYT, paywall]

Possibly one of the most hilarious headlines of this year: Why Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Should Win Game Of The Year (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [The Gamer].

Inter alia & Back in the day

The Guardian offers this opinion: A knife-edge quest: Lord of the Rings resonates at Cop28 climate summit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Meloni, Tolkien and Italy’s fellowship of the ring (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Financial Times].

It might be interesting to note this New York Times piece as well: Italy Searches for Museum Leaders, With Nationalism in the Air (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [some monthly free articles with free registration]

Vanity Fair has Star Wars Undertakes Universe-Shaking Changes After Ahsoka (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Star Trek seems to add a major podcast (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Khan.

On the 60th Anniversary (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of Doctor Who.

The Dark Magazine (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has moved away from Amazon and is happy for any support (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to cover their losses - support independent magazines as much as you can like Clarkesworld (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) or Interzone (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (or whatever great magazine you love!)

Ansible 436 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has been published.

The BBC obviously pulled out all the stops for Shakespeare 400 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

GRRM shared the trailer for the second season of House of the Dragon via his blog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - and quite a few words on his recent work stay (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in London.

You can now get the map of Earthsea in a stunning limited edition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Given the importance of Wikipedia and wikis in general for fandom this might be of interest: Toxic comments are associated with reduced activity of volunteer editors on Wikipedia (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [PNAS Nexus]

The Star Wars fan community has been loving (and loathing) the infamous Holidays’ special. Now there is a documentary (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on it. [NPR]

According to German law I have to infom you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's, the bookshop of my personal trust.

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