The Ninety-fourth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

December 9, 1959. Tolkien writes Letter #222 (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) meets up with Tolkien in Oxford to talk about The Lord of the Rings.
December 15, 1937. Tolkien writes a letter to Arthur Ransome (Opens in a new window), 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 (Opens in a new window), telling her about finishing The Lord of the Rings after twelve years. #122
December 21, 1927. Father Christmas writes a letter (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) author page (Opens in a new window) instead of Wikipedia (even though that is not half bad).

A scan of the Tolkien Family Album has been made available via Archive.org (Opens in a new window).

Events & Shows

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

The touring Magic of Middle-earth (Opens in a new window) exhibition continues to draws crowds.

The Living Knowledge Network (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) exhibition, many of them available online; the next major event is Dec 9 (Opens in a new window).
Please note the BL is still suffering from a recent ransomware attack, the latest news are available here (Opens in a new window). And according to this Yahoo post (Opens in a new window) sensitive data of all UK authors might have been stolen.

Why this very old piece (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) is happening in Spain.

The Dutch TS is having its Joelfest (Opens in a new window) on Dec 16.

Scholarship and Fandom

The Athrabeth (Opens in a new window) podcast did an interview with Tom Hillman on his upcoming book.

David Bratman has the content (Opens in a new window) of the upcoming Tolkien Studies volume (20).

John D. Rateliff has a few thoughts (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) between Tolkien and Katharine Briggs. In addition to that he reminds us (Opens in a new window) of a list of people obviously important to JRRT.

The Tolkien Society has issued a Call for Papers for the 2024 Seminar (Opens in a new window).

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

Dimitra Fimi has shared her paper Tolkien and the Fairies: Faith and Folklore (Opens in a new window).

John Garth talked to Alan Sisto about his upcoming book, Tolkien’s Mirror (Opens in a new window). [Youtube]

There are the oddest of places when The Lord of the Rings pop up - including reddit relationship moments (Opens in a new window). [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 (Opens in a new window).

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

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 (Opens in a new window) [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. (Opens in a new window) [Guardian]

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

The franchise tourism in New Zealand is reaching new heights with the opening of Bagshot Row (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window) [NYT, paywall]

Possibly one of the most hilarious headlines of this year: Why Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Should Win Game Of The Year (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window).

Meloni, Tolkien and Italy’s fellowship of the ring (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window). [some monthly free articles with free registration]

Vanity Fair has Star Wars Undertakes Universe-Shaking Changes After Ahsoka (Opens in a new window).

Star Trek seems to add a major podcast (Opens in a new window) on Khan.

On the 60th Anniversary (Opens in a new window) of Doctor Who.

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

Ansible 436 (Opens in a new window) has been published.

The BBC obviously pulled out all the stops for Shakespeare 400 (Opens in a new window).

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

You can now get the map of Earthsea in a stunning limited edition (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window). [PNAS Nexus]

The Star Wars fan community has been loving (and loathing) the infamous Holidays’ special. Now there is a documentary (Opens in a new window) 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.

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
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