The One-hundred and fifth Roving Ranger

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

Life and Works

July 12, 1973. The University of Edinburgh confers an Honorary Degree (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Tolkien.
July 14, 1916. The 11th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers (including Tolkien) is sent into action at the Somme (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) front.
July 15, 1919. Tolkien is officially released from service, well over a year after the war (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)'s end.
July 16, 1924. Tolkien is appointed Professor of English Language at the University of Leeds (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
July 18, 1962. Tolkien writes Letter 238 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), on Pearl, Sir Gawain, Bombadil etc.
July 21, 1946. Tolkienwrites (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)Letter 105 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), on LotR, Farmer Giles, etc.
July 22, 1925. Tolkien writes Letter 8 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); on his election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship.
July 24, 1973. Tolkien writes Letter 326 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), lamenting that he and Rayner Unwin could not spend much time together anymore.

All date (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)s are tak (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)en from Tolkien Gateway. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

A (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)must have - (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) the exhibition catalogue (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to the Tolkien tapestries’ project (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Aubusson [FR/EN]; on the exhibition (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Actual News, EN], and the original post (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) with France Info [FR].

The single most expensive copy of The Hobbit has been sold for $300,000 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [ArtDaily].

Publisher overwhelmed by response to Welsh Hobbit (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)[Nation Cymru]

Events & Shows

An exceptional collection of Tolkien letters, calligraphy (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) etc. has just come under the hammer. [Sotheby’s]

French Association Tolkiendil have published a video of the opening (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of the final exhibition of the arguably most important art project in many a year - “Aubusson weaves Tolkien.” [Youtube]

The US-based Children’s Literature Association (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has a Call for Papers - due September 2024 - on A Special Issue of Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [PDF]

The Tolkien Society has teamed up with the Serbian Tolkien Society (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to offer their hybrid seminar (Belgrade & online) on Dec 7-8: Tolkien as Heritage (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

If you happen to be in Connecticut in November why not have a look at the 2nd Annual Hobbit Harvest: Farmers market & Craft (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) in Salem (free)

The John Howe exhibition is now on in Tampere, Finland (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The German Tolkien Society’s Tolkien Thing is happening this weekend (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); the guest society is Finland, the GoH German Tolkien publisher’s - Hobbitpresse (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - editor, Stephan Askani.

The LotR Musical (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is starting its run in Chicago on July 19. And it is coming to New Zealand (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) as well [What’s on Stage]

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

The Tales after Tolkien Society has announced that the upcoming IMC (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has accepted their proposal: Return of the Franchise: Twenty-First-Century Continuations of Tolkien's Medievalism (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Signum Press have published a CfP for a Philology Anthology (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The excellent Jeff LaSala - you may have read some of his pieces with Tor.com (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) - has started a new blog: Foreshadowed and Foresung (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

French collector Rodrigue Petit (Instagram: rodchess (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)) has written an article on his hobby for The Introvert (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Giovanni Carmine Costabile’s The Mirror of Desire Unbidden: Retrieving the Imago Dei in Tolkien and Late Medieval English Literature (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is freely available as eBook and PDF [Peter Lang]

Published with the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is the magazine Comunicación. Vol. 33 Núm. 1 (2024) has a special Tolkien section (Öffnet in neuem Fenster); the download is for free as PDF [in Spanish]; h/t to Tolkien Gleanings 213.

Composer and conductor Johan de Meji (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (LotR Symphony #1 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)) has handed over his archives to the Library of Congress (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (Facebook).

Volume 19, issue 1, of the Journal of Tolkien Research has added number of reviews and conference papers (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) recently.

Tom Hillman has some thoughts on Face up, Face down with Gollum and Boethius (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Robin Reid has announced a new publication: Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and has invited Advisory Board applications (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Substack]

Miriam Ellis has some thoughts on: The Fine Frailty of Gandalf and the Long Service of Círdan (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Andrew Higgins has shared the CFP for Tolkien at Leeds International Medieval Congress (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). (7-10 July 2025)

Franchise and Merchandise

The amazing Kiran Shah has been made an MBE (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Independent; Wikipedia (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

An article by IGN, including a visit to the set, images, videos: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 — 50 New Details From the Set of Middle-earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). And a first look of Cirdan (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Entertainment Weekly] | Meet The Rings Of Power’s New Hill-Troll, Inspired By Breaking Bad’s Mike Ehrmantraut (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Empire] | The LotR: Rings of Power will be coming to San Diego Comic Con (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), inviting many influencers along the way. Also, TORn has much on the beginning publicity tour (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on Season 2.

The Tolkien Calendar 2025 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is published on July 18th.

The Hobbiton movie set came #10 in a piece on “most magical travel destinations (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)”; more importantly, Lauterbrunnen was at #7 which means Middle-earth tourism belongs to the biggest money makers out there. [Sligo; Webarchive]

LotRO will be getting its own official Discord (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Massively OP]

Bag End (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) might be LEGO’ed. [Brick Fanatics]

Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Ian McKellen get together for food travelog (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). [Deadline]

Inter alia & Back in the day

St John Henry Newman College, a “new school in the classical tradition” to be launched in Brisbane (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Cath News], introducing students to ‘great books’:

“For the juniors, that’ll be Aesop’s fables, Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia and Tolkien’’ (…)

It is both a sad as well as a lovely story: 'Hobbit Hut' opens at County Durham school as teacher's dream realised (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Northern Echo]

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Disposessed is the inspiration to True Voyage is Return (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), an art project planning to write a 90,000 word novel in a Birmingham, UK, café. [University of Birmingham press release (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

A review of The Island by Nicholas Jenkins (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) mentions Tolkien.

‘Harry Potter’ TV Series WON’T Replace the Films, Will Acknowledge Them as Canon, WB Confirms (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Inside the Magic]

Ansible 444 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has been published.

How big of a deal are the HUGOs (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)? [File 770]

Mary Robinette Kowal has a Kickstarter (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on an upcoming anthology.

David Bratman has a few comments on the Harlan Ellison book project (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Paramount Global Officially Agrees To Skydance Merger (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), With Potential Big Impact On Star Trek’s Future [trekmovie.com (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)]

An in-depth interview: ILM’s chief creative officer reveals the secrets of building the Star Wars universe (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Fast Company]

George R.R. Martin has questions on his chocolate self. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Bracket symbols, well explained: (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.