The One hundred and twentieth Roving Ranger

Life & Works

Jan 17, 1973. Tolkien writes a Letter to N.J. Kyle (Opens in a new window) on the Silmarillion.
Jan 18, 1934. Tolkien's poem "Looney (Opens in a new window)" is published in The Oxford Magazine.
Jan 19, 1965. Tolkien writes Letter 268 (Opens in a new window) on the fate of Shadowfax.
Jan 20, 1912. Vincent Trought (Opens in a new window), a member of the T.C.B.S., dies.
Jan 21, 1889. Edith Bratt (Opens in a new window) is born in Gloucestershire.
Jan 22, 1956. The NYT Book Review publishes Auden (Opens in a new window)'s review of RotK, "At the End of the Quest, Victory (Opens in a new window)".
Jan 24, 1972. Tolkien writes Letter 332 (Opens in a new window) about Merton College taking him in.

• Third Age. Gandalf pursued the creature for eight days until they climbed to the peak of Zirakzigil (Opens in a new window), where they fought (Opens in a new window) for three days and two nights [death of the Balrog, Jan 25]

All information available with Tolkien Gateway (Opens in a new window).

Events & Shows

The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale review (Opens in a new window) [Guardian; for the Sydney edition] | [Broadway World (Opens in a new window)] | [Limelight Magazine (Opens in a new window)] | [Scenestr (Opens in a new window)]

The library of the Belgian city Aubange has a wide range of events from January 25 to March 15 with the theme “from book to film (Opens in a new window).”

The HOTA (Opens in a new window) in Australia has an exhibition coming up in April called “Writers Revealed (Opens in a new window): Treasures from the British Library and National Portrait Gallery, London”, including letters from J.R.R. Tolkien (to Michael George Tolkien).

The Phantastische Bibliotek (Library of the Fantastic) in Wetzlar in cooperation with the German Inklings Society (Opens in a new window) has a conference coming up: Beyond Elvish. Constructed Languages in Fantastic Worlds (Sept 2025). (CfP in German/English (Opens in a new window) [pdf]; deadline Feb 28)

France sees an online event with Fandival (Opens in a new window) pulling together four fandoms: GoT, HP, Tolkien, and WoT (Jan 25-25).

The New England Youth Theatre (Opens in a new window) in Brattleboro, VT, is doing a Puppet Design and Build Workshop (Opens in a new window) for their upcoming Hobbit stage adaptation.

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

Nominations open for Tolkien Society Awards 2025 (Opens in a new window) (until Jan 31).

Nota bene: Yes, you can nominate thetolkienist.com and/or the Roving Ranger for ‘best online content’ 😇 *winkwink*

The Prancing Pony Podcast is coming up with something new on Jan 21 - here is the announcement (Opens in a new window). [Youtube]

The conference proceedings of the Mythopoeic Society’s “Something Mighty Queer” are now available online (Opens in a new window).

Jason Fisher has A short review of The Mythmakers (Opens in a new window).

PlaymOkapix (Opens in a new window) has done Thorin's Charge - in Playmobil. [Youtube]

Andrew Higgins has Early Elvish Pronouns and The 1920's Early Qenya Grammar (Opens in a new window).

The New York Times has a (paywalled?) article on the most excellent Karen Wynn Fonstad (Opens in a new window) of the Atlas of Middle-earth; Jeff LaSala has some thoughts about her work (Opens in a new window).

Sørina Higgins has Barfield Halfway Along Life’s Journey (Opens in a new window).

The JTR issue 20/2 has another piece: The English and the Welsh: Tolkien’s Rewriting of History in the Legendarium (Opens in a new window).

Merchandise & Franchise

Lord of the Rings Online’s lead explains how the new 64-bit servers are going to work (Opens in a new window) [Massively Overpowered]

The steelbook edition of LotR: War of the Rohirrim has a date with Amazon - Feb 18 (Opens in a new window).

A new merchandise agreement (Opens in a new window) for Middle-earth Enterprises - the German Burgschneider Group, a company specialised in costumes and character design, with roots in LARP and major conventions - and which already has D&D and Warhammer licenses.

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Inter alia & Back in the Day

David Lodge has passed away (Opens in a new window). [Guardian; Penguin (Opens in a new window); h/t David Bratman (Opens in a new window)]

David Lynch has passed away (Opens in a new window). [Wertzone; BBC (Opens in a new window); Variety (Opens in a new window)]

Ellen Kushner has Progress and Resolutions (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

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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.

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