The One hundred and thirtieth Roving Ranger
Life and Works
March 28, 1958. Tolkien is invited to attend a "Hobbit Dinner" in Rotterdam (Opens in a new window).
March 30, 1972. Tolkien writes Letter 334 (Opens in a new window), thanking ‘Rayner [Unwin] for his help during Tolkien's C.B.E. awarding.’
April 1, 1977. Tolkien's children found The Tolkien Trust (Opens in a new window) charity.
April 3, 1958. Tolkien, signing as "Gandalf (Opens in a new window)", sends a letter to a Dutchman (Opens in a new window).
An Hobat, no A-null ’s Air Ais A-rithist The Hobbit, or There and Back Again in Scottish Gaelic (Opens in a new window) [Evertype Publishing]
Parma Eldalamberon #19 is now available as print on demand [Barnes & Noble (Opens in a new window); Great British Bookshop (Opens in a new window)]
Tolkien Triangle will honour Hobbit author's legacy (Opens in a new window) [BBC News; h/t Andrew Wells; please note the original version of the post had ‘18 years’]
Events & Shows
Registration deadline for the 21st Annual UVM Tolkien Conference: Tolkien and War (Opens in a new window) is April 1st.
The New York Tolkien Conference has announced Kristine Larsen as a guest speaker (Opens in a new window).
Please do not be surprised that the Southampton Rum Festival (Opens in a new window) might pop up in the news in the coming weeks with a “Tolkien link” - it’s held at the Hobbit pub, that’s why!
Interestingly enough, Elaine Paige, one of the UK’s most well-known artists in musical theatre with her own BBC radio show, mentioned the Tolkien Reading Day in this episode (Opens in a new window)(at 1:50:50). Well done!
For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).
Scholarship & Fandom
John Garth has Tolkien Reading Day and the machine war against imagination (Opens in a new window).
Dimitra Fimi now has a Substack. The first post is: On Tolkien's Letter 131 (1): Capturing "timeless Elvish enchantment." (Opens in a new window)
The discussions on Tolkien publications in France continue (Opens in a new window) [Telerama; in support of Vincent Ferré]
The Tolkien Society has a job advert out - for its first Chief Executive Officer (Opens in a new window).
The Bodleian Libraries shared the annotated map of Middle-earth (Opens in a new window) for TRD [this even made it to File770 (Opens in a new window).]
The 1969 Tim Kirk calendar is available as a PDF scan with FANAC (Opens in a new window).
The transactions of the Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeologial Society (Opens in a new window) are now available online (Opens in a new window). [Iron Room, Birmingham Libraries]
doubtfulsea has Treating (Opens in a new window).
Merchandise & Franchise
The Wheel of Time vs. The Rings of Power - Which has Earned More Revenue for Prime Video? (Opens in a new window) [Parrot Analytics]
Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale is dubbed ‘The Best Show in Middle Earth’ (Opens in a new window)[review; Out in Perth]; The Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale (Opens in a new window) [Australian Arts Review]
Hot Topic fashion has added more Lord of the Rings items (Opens in a new window).
LEGO is pulling out all the stops with an official mini movie, including Sean Astin (Opens in a new window). [Youtube, IGN (Opens in a new window)]
Tales of the Shire: A The Lord of The Rings Game – community building and shared meals gameplay details (Opens in a new window) [Playstation Blog]
Inter alia
The best pubs and bars in Oxford according to The Telegraph (Opens in a new window) [Oxford & Mail; nonsense article mentioning the closed Eagle & Child but not the Lamb & Flag?!?]
One of the largest genetic testing companies is bankrupt (Opens in a new window) - so let’s hope all of your information is safe. [CBS News]
A quick write-up of all U.S.S. Enterprise (Opens in a new window) incarnations [Startrek.com (Opens in a new window)]
ANDOR, season 2, has an official trailer (Opens in a new window).
George Orwell and me: Richard Blair on life with his extraordinary father (Opens in a new window) [Guardian]
Event Report: Fantasy in the Midst of War: Perspectives from Ukraine (Opens in a new window).
Mutiny brews in French bookshops over Hachette owner’s media grip (Opens in a new window) [Guardian]
A lovely look back at Leonard Nimoy’s life (Opens in a new window) (born March 26th, 1931) with File770.
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If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Opens in a new window) : Facebook (Opens in a new window) : Bluesky (Opens in a new window) : Instagram (Opens in a new window) : Threads (Opens in a new window) : Mastodon (Opens in a new window).
Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)
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.
