The One-hundred and third Roving Ranger

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Life and Works

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

A Welsh (Si apre in una nuova finestra)translation of The Hobbit (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is now available - and ONLY - on pre-order (Si apre in una nuova finestra). More information with [Nation Cymru (Si apre in una nuova finestra)] | The Louxembourgish edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is also available (again). [TCG]

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

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), including a bust of Tolkien, a copy of A Middle English Vocabulary, a Hobbit, and a personal letter (Si apre in una nuova finestra) by Tolkien [TCG letter entry #310 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

And NYC is the place to be this weekend with the NYTC happening again (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Have fun at ideally named Baruch College!

The Chicago rendition of the Lord of the Rings Musical has announced its cast (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in San Jose, CA (September 2024). All available info here (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Dutch Tolkien Society, Unquendor, has its Slotfeest on June 21-23 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

For all events (Si apre in una nuova finestra) check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Taylor & Francis Online]

Oronzo Cilli has another post: Tolkien's Proposed Translation of Old Norse Egilssaga (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The 2024 Mythopoeic Awards (Si apre in una nuova finestra) Finalists have been announced (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Manchester University Press has an upcoming book A book of monsters: Promethean horror in modern literature and culture (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 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” (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [paywall; institutional access].

Rob Maslen has a substantial piece on Gerald Bullett, The Spanish Caravel (1927), reissued as The Happy Mariners (1935) (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [arxiv.org (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Cornell University]

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

Douglas A. Anderson has a note on one of Tolkien’s essential statements (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Franchise and Merchandise

LotR: The War of the Rohirrim has shown 20 mins. at Annecy (Si apre in una nuova finestra). TORn has a lot of interviews on this (Si apre in una nuova finestra). And Peter Jackson has joined the film as executive producer.

New Zealand’s Tree of the Year (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

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

The Lord of the Rings Luxury Playing Cards (Si apre in una nuova finestra)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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (incl. Tales of the Shire) [Deadline; see also The Verge (Si apre in una nuova finestra) for trailer]

TORn has an interview with the producers (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of Tales of the Shire.

Inter alia & Back in the day

Ursula K. Le Guin’s home will become a place for writers’ residencies (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Literary Hub]

Certainly one of the oddest things on the web, NationStates (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) lives in anarchy.

Star Trek received the institutional Peabody Award (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Official website (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Handheld Press will closing by mid-2025 so now is the time to buy some ‘forgotten’ yet most excellent books (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

A mural on a pub (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Oxford includes mentions to Inspector Morse, Carroll and Tolkien characters. [BBC; the Library Pub (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

The first ever HUGO was bought at auction by the convention that handed it out (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Kurd Laßwitz Award winners have been announced (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [science fiction novels; Germany]

Disney+ and other players are ceasing production of physical media (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (h/t PhantaNews (Si apre in una nuova finestra)).

China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Wired; h/t Wertzone (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

If you are considering your modes of transportation:

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 or Bookshop.org, the bookshops of my personal trust.

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Facebook (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Bluesky (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Instagram (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Mastodon (Si apre in una nuova finestra) : Xitter (Si apre in una nuova finestra)
You can support me by becoming a member with my Steady page (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

If you happen to use Feedly (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - why not subscribe to one of their most popular Tolkien blogs: thetolkienist.com ☺️

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.