The Eighty-second Roving Ranger

Life and Works

Mar 10, 1950. Tolkien writes Letter 125 (Opens in a new window), part of the fascinating and often disappointing (to Tolkien) publication history of The Lord of the Rings.
March 13, 1956. Tolkien receives a letter from Sam Gamgee - see Letter 184 (Opens in a new window).
March 16, 1916. Tolkien receives his degree from the University of Oxford (Opens in a new window) in a much delayed ceremony.
March 21, 1967. Tolkien writes a letter to Humphrey Carpenter (Opens in a new window) who had asked for permission of turning The Hobbit into a children's musical play.
March 22, 1968. The Daily Telegraph publishes an interview (Opens in a new window) of Charlotte and Denis Plimmer with J.R.R. Tolkien titled The Man Who Understands Hobbits.

Events & Shows

A Colloquium on developing digital critical edition of Tolkien Fanzines (Opens in a new window) will be happening March 29th with the Raynor Memorial Libraries (Opens in a new window) at Marquette University.

I am not sure why the Dalles-Wasco County Public Library (Opens in a new window) is going all out nuts on The Hobbit from March 1st - April 29th but I love it - and I would love to participate (Opens in a new window) in The Floor is Mt Doom as well as Stocking Bilbo's Pantry. 😍

The Lord of the Rings Musical (Opens in a new window) will return, this time to the English countryside at the Watermill Theatre close to Newbury, from Jul 25 - Oct 15, 2023; it is not clear yet which version of the musical this will be or what changes may have been made to it; however, the original London cast number was 68, this one is supposed to have about 20.

A theatre in British Columbia will bring The Hobbit (Opens in a new window) to the stage in July.

Scholarship and Fandom

Tolkien scholar Jason Fisher (Opens in a new window) mentioned on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window) that he was involved in the making of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth | MTG (Opens in a new window). 

• [Corey Olsen mentioned (Opens in a new window) he was involved with LotR: Return to Moria so it is good to see expertise is being asked.]

A review of The Norse Myths That Shape the Way We Think (Opens in a new window) by Carolyne Larrington.

One of the best fannish calendars for 2023 can still be ordered with Beyond Bree (Opens in a new window).

Laura Burke (Opens in a new window) has an exhibition in Portland (Opens in a new window), Oregon, called Bright blue his jacket is, and his boots are yellow (Opens in a new window).

#TolkienTrewsDay on Twitter is starting to be a thing and I wrote a piece on trees for its second edition, talking about the legendary Pinus Nigra (Opens in a new window) at the OBGA.

John D. Rateliff recently celebrated the deluxe edition of HotH (Opens in a new window).

Franchise and Merchandise

I was invited to a presentation with Lord of the Rings: Gollum developer Daedalic (Opens in a new window) in Hamburg last week and I am very happy to see a new trailer (Opens in a new window) and a first dev diary (Opens in a new window) have found their way online since then. I will be able to write more about this soon.

The situation as of right now when it comes to the franchise might be summarised like this: ‘Lord of the Rings’: Amazon, Warner Bros. Ready for Tolkien Battle (Opens in a new window). [Hollywood Reporter; see quote below]

The result could leave two behemoth studios feeling like they’re spending billions to fight over Tolkien’s creative lembas bread crumbs.

Having said this, Warner Bros. are 'only just starting to expand (Opens in a new window)' on the LotR & Harry Potter IPs. [Variety]

Streaming has changed the business but now the mega-IPs have to reconsider some of their plans - see Star Wars (Opens in a new window). [Variety]

A fairly decent post on Where the Lion and the Witch Met the Hobbit (Opens in a new window). [New York Times]

I was ready to blow a fuse when reading the headline - but it is not quite that bad 😅 10 Literary Quotes To Inspire You As A Startup Founder (Opens in a new window) [Forbes]

The New Zealand Mint is also cashing on... Poster coins (Opens in a new window)! 

If you want to know all there is to know - so far - on the Magic version of the LotR franchise here we go (Opens in a new window).

Meet the award-winning (Opens in a new window) legal advice team that helped the Embracer Group buy Middle-earth Enterprises: Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP (Opens in a new window).

The company behind The One Ring RPG, Free League Publishing (Opens in a new window), has announced the expansion Tales from the Lone-Lands (Opens in a new window).

Inter alia & Back in the day

Brian Sibley has kindly enough shared Microphones in Middle-earth (Opens in a new window), a behind the curtains look at the possibly best adaptation of The Lord of the Rings yet.

It is always interesting to see how years' old posts and art get a revival somewhere on social media - like this Nick Kohney/ The Other End comic from 2019.

Or Nathan W. Pyle's Strange Planet from 2021.

Tolkien gets an article with the Country Life special edition of March 8, 2023 as Lord of the Shires (Opens in a new window).

Charlie Connelly takes a 'new' Terry Pratchett book as inspiration to ask Should undiscovered Terry Pratchett stories, and other posthumous work, be published? (Opens in a new window) [New European]

Star Trek: Discovery (Opens in a new window) will finish with season 5, Picard with season 3. [EW]

‘It’s Kind of Embarrassing (Opens in a new window)’: Why Animators Are Unhappy With the Oscars. [Vulture]

Another Alien (Opens in a new window) film is in the making. [The Wertzone]

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.

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) : Twitter (Opens in a new window) : Instagram (Opens in a new window) : Tolkien-Discord (Opens in a new window) [de/en]

What to look forward to in 2023 if you like Tolkien and all things Tolkienian