The One-hundred and fifth Roving Ranger

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

Life and Works

July 12, 1973. The University of Edinburgh confers an Honorary Degree (Opens in a new window) on Tolkien.
July 14, 1916. The 11th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers (including Tolkien) is sent into action at the Somme (Opens in a new window) front.
July 15, 1919. Tolkien is officially released from service, well over a year after the war (Opens in a new window)'s end.
July 16, 1924. Tolkien is appointed Professor of English Language at the University of Leeds (Opens in a new window).
July 18, 1962. Tolkien writes Letter 238 (Opens in a new window), on Pearl, Sir Gawain, Bombadil etc.
July 21, 1946. Tolkienwrites (Opens in a new window)Letter 105 (Opens in a new window), on LotR, Farmer Giles, etc.
July 22, 1925. Tolkien writes Letter 8 (Opens in a new window); on his election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship.
July 24, 1973. Tolkien writes Letter 326 (Opens in a new window), lamenting that he and Rayner Unwin could not spend much time together anymore.

All date (Opens in a new window)s are tak (Opens in a new window)en from Tolkien Gateway. (Opens in a new window)

A (Opens in a new window)must have - (Opens in a new window) the exhibition catalogue (Opens in a new window) to the Tolkien tapestries’ project (Opens in a new window) in Aubusson [FR/EN]; on the exhibition (Opens in a new window) [Actual News, EN], and the original post (Opens in a new window) with France Info [FR].

The single most expensive copy of The Hobbit has been sold for $300,000 (Opens in a new window) [ArtDaily].

Publisher overwhelmed by response to Welsh Hobbit (Opens in a new window)[Nation Cymru]

Events & Shows

An exceptional collection of Tolkien letters, calligraphy (Opens in a new window) etc. has just come under the hammer. [Sotheby’s]

French Association Tolkiendil have published a video of the opening (Opens in a new window) of the final exhibition of the arguably most important art project in many a year - “Aubusson weaves Tolkien.” [Youtube]

The US-based Children’s Literature Association (Opens in a new window) has a Call for Papers - due September 2024 - on A Special Issue of Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (Opens in a new window). [PDF]

The Tolkien Society has teamed up with the Serbian Tolkien Society (Opens in a new window) to offer their hybrid seminar (Belgrade & online) on Dec 7-8: Tolkien as Heritage (Opens in a new window).

If you happen to be in Connecticut in November why not have a look at the 2nd Annual Hobbit Harvest: Farmers market & Craft (Opens in a new window) in Salem (free)

The John Howe exhibition is now on in Tampere, Finland (Opens in a new window).

The German Tolkien Society’s Tolkien Thing is happening this weekend (Opens in a new window); the guest society is Finland, the GoH German Tolkien publisher’s - Hobbitpresse (Opens in a new window) - editor, Stephan Askani.

The LotR Musical (Opens in a new window) is starting its run in Chicago on July 19. And it is coming to New Zealand (Opens in a new window) as well [What’s on Stage]

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

The Tales after Tolkien Society has announced that the upcoming IMC (Opens in a new window) has accepted their proposal: Return of the Franchise: Twenty-First-Century Continuations of Tolkien's Medievalism (Opens in a new window).

Signum Press have published a CfP for a Philology Anthology (Opens in a new window).

The excellent Jeff LaSala - you may have read some of his pieces with Tor.com (Opens in a new window) - has started a new blog: Foreshadowed and Foresung (Opens in a new window).

French collector Rodrigue Petit (Instagram: rodchess (Opens in a new window)) has written an article on his hobby for The Introvert (Opens in a new window).

Giovanni Carmine Costabile’s The Mirror of Desire Unbidden: Retrieving the Imago Dei in Tolkien and Late Medieval English Literature (Opens in a new window) is freely available as eBook and PDF [Peter Lang]

Published with the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (Opens in a new window) is the magazine Comunicación. Vol. 33 Núm. 1 (2024) has a special Tolkien section (Opens in a new window); the download is for free as PDF [in Spanish]; h/t to Tolkien Gleanings 213.

Composer and conductor Johan de Meji (Opens in a new window) (LotR Symphony #1 (Opens in a new window)) has handed over his archives to the Library of Congress (Opens in a new window) (Facebook).

Volume 19, issue 1, of the Journal of Tolkien Research has added number of reviews and conference papers (Opens in a new window) recently.

Tom Hillman has some thoughts on Face up, Face down with Gollum and Boethius (Opens in a new window).

Robin Reid has announced a new publication: Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies (Opens in a new window) and has invited Advisory Board applications (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

Miriam Ellis has some thoughts on: The Fine Frailty of Gandalf and the Long Service of Círdan (Opens in a new window).

Andrew Higgins has shared the CFP for Tolkien at Leeds International Medieval Congress (Opens in a new window). (7-10 July 2025)

Franchise and Merchandise

The amazing Kiran Shah has been made an MBE (Opens in a new window). [Independent; Wikipedia (Opens in a new window)]

An article by IGN, including a visit to the set, images, videos: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Season 2 — 50 New Details From the Set of Middle-earth (Opens in a new window). And a first look of Cirdan (Opens in a new window) [Entertainment Weekly] | Meet The Rings Of Power’s New Hill-Troll, Inspired By Breaking Bad’s Mike Ehrmantraut (Opens in a new window) [Empire] | The LotR: Rings of Power will be coming to San Diego Comic Con (Opens in a new window), inviting many influencers along the way. Also, TORn has much on the beginning publicity tour (Opens in a new window) on Season 2.

The Tolkien Calendar 2025 (Opens in a new window) is published on July 18th.

The Hobbiton movie set came #10 in a piece on “most magical travel destinations (Opens in a new window)”; more importantly, Lauterbrunnen was at #7 which means Middle-earth tourism belongs to the biggest money makers out there. [Sligo; Webarchive]

LotRO will be getting its own official Discord (Opens in a new window). [Massively OP]

Bag End (Opens in a new window) might be LEGO’ed. [Brick Fanatics]

Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Ian McKellen get together for food travelog (Opens in a new window). [Deadline]

Inter alia & Back in the day

St John Henry Newman College, a “new school in the classical tradition” to be launched in Brisbane (Opens in a new window) [Cath News], introducing students to ‘great books’:

“For the juniors, that’ll be Aesop’s fables, Beatrix Potter, Winnie the Pooh and Wind in the Willows, C.S. Lewis’s Narnia and Tolkien’’ (…)

It is both a sad as well as a lovely story: 'Hobbit Hut' opens at County Durham school as teacher's dream realised (Opens in a new window) [Northern Echo]

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Disposessed is the inspiration to True Voyage is Return (Opens in a new window), an art project planning to write a 90,000 word novel in a Birmingham, UK, café. [University of Birmingham press release (Opens in a new window)]

A review of The Island by Nicholas Jenkins (Opens in a new window) mentions Tolkien.

‘Harry Potter’ TV Series WON’T Replace the Films, Will Acknowledge Them as Canon, WB Confirms (Opens in a new window) [Inside the Magic]

Ansible 444 (Opens in a new window) has been published.

How big of a deal are the HUGOs (Opens in a new window)? [File 770]

Mary Robinette Kowal has a Kickstarter (Opens in a new window) on an upcoming anthology.

David Bratman has a few comments on the Harlan Ellison book project (Opens in a new window).

Paramount Global Officially Agrees To Skydance Merger (Opens in a new window), With Potential Big Impact On Star Trek’s Future [trekmovie.com (Opens in a new window)]

An in-depth interview: ILM’s chief creative officer reveals the secrets of building the Star Wars universe (Opens in a new window) [Fast Company]

George R.R. Martin has questions on his chocolate self. (Opens in a new window)

Bracket symbols, well explained: (Opens in a new window)

According to German law I have to infom you al (Opens in a new window)l links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Opens in a new window) or Bookshop.org (Opens in a new window), the bookshops of my personal trust.

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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.