The One-hundred and third Roving Ranger

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)

Life and Works

June 15, 1967. Tolkien records verses for the record Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (Opens in a new window).
June 17, 1968. Tolkien falls down the stairs of 76 Sandfield Road (Opens in a new window) and breaks his leg.
June 18, 1914. The Chequers Clubbe (Opens in a new window), founded by Tolkien, meet to have dinner.
June 22, 1911. Tolkien and several other cadets of King Edward's School (Opens in a new window)'s Officer Training Corps (Opens in a new window) line the route at the Coronation of George V (Opens in a new window). Tolkien (Opens in a new window) stands near Buckingham Palace.
June 23, 1945. Tolkien is elected Merton Professor of English Language and Literature (Opens in a new window).
June 25, 1957. Tolkien writes Letter 200 (Opens in a new window). “I note your remarks about Sauron.”
June 26, 1968. Tolkien writes Letter 305 (Opens in a new window). “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 (Opens in a new window) meets Tolkien. He agrees to become The Tolkien Society (Opens in a new window)'s Honorary Presiden (Opens in a new window)t.
June 28, 1919. The Treaty of Versailles is signed and the First World War officially ends.

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

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

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 (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window), including a bust of Tolkien, a copy of A Middle English Vocabulary, a Hobbit, and a personal letter (Opens in a new window) by Tolkien [TCG letter entry #310 (Opens in a new window)]

And NYC is the place to be this weekend with the NYTC happening again (Opens in a new window). Have fun at ideally named Baruch College!

The Chicago rendition of the Lord of the Rings Musical has announced its cast (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window) in San Jose, CA (September 2024). All available info here (Opens in a new window).

The Dutch Tolkien Society, Unquendor, has its Slotfeest on June 21-23 (Opens in a new window).

For all events (Opens in a new window) check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window) [Taylor & Francis Online]

Oronzo Cilli has another post: Tolkien's Proposed Translation of Old Norse Egilssaga (Opens in a new window).

The 2024 Mythopoeic Awards (Opens in a new window) Finalists have been announced (Opens in a new window).

Manchester University Press has an upcoming book A book of monsters: Promethean horror in modern literature and culture (Opens in a new window), 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” (Opens in a new window) [paywall; institutional access].

Rob Maslen has a substantial piece on Gerald Bullett, The Spanish Caravel (1927), reissued as The Happy Mariners (1935) (Opens in a new window) - 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 (Opens in a new window) [arxiv.org (Opens in a new window), Cornell University]

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

Douglas A. Anderson has a note on one of Tolkien’s essential statements (Opens in a new window).

Franchise and Merchandise

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

New Zealand’s Tree of the Year (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window)]

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

The Lord of the Rings Luxury Playing Cards (Opens in a new window)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 (Opens in a new window) (incl. Tales of the Shire) [Deadline; see also The Verge (Opens in a new window) for trailer]

TORn has an interview with the producers (Opens in a new window) of Tales of the Shire.

Inter alia & Back in the day

Ursula K. Le Guin’s home will become a place for writers’ residencies (Opens in a new window). [Literary Hub]

Certainly one of the oddest things on the web, NationStates (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) lives in anarchy.

Star Trek received the institutional Peabody Award (Opens in a new window). [Official website (Opens in a new window)]

Handheld Press will closing by mid-2025 so now is the time to buy some ‘forgotten’ yet most excellent books (Opens in a new window).

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

The first ever HUGO was bought at auction by the convention that handed it out (Opens in a new window).

The Kurd Laßwitz Award winners have been announced (Opens in a new window) [science fiction novels; Germany]

Disney+ and other players are ceasing production of physical media (Opens in a new window) - 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 (Opens in a new window) (h/t PhantaNews (Opens in a new window)).

China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (Opens in a new window) [Wired; h/t Wertzone (Opens in a new window)]

If you are considering your modes of transportation:

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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.