The One hundred and twenty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

Feb 5-9, 1968. Filming for the documentary Tolkien in Oxford (Si apre in una nuova finestra).
Feb 10, 1939. Tolkien writes Letter 36 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), planning to “make a special effort to finish [LotR] before June 15…”
Feb 11, 1945. Tolkien writes Letter 97 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), displaying “etymological exasperation.”
Feb 13, 1961. Tolkien writes letter 228a (Si apre in una nuova finestra), with an “apology for being late with one of his translations for the Jerusalem Bible (Si apre in una nuova finestra).”
Feb 14, 1896. Tolkien dictates a letter to his father (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

“Lines from The Shire. To write poetry was one of Tolkien’s first ambitions” (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [The Critic]

New World Record Set for Sale of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Fine Book & Collector]

Opening time for Tolkien and CS Lewis - Harry Mount on the reopening of the Inklings' Oxford pubs (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [The Oldie; seems to be an almost identical reissue of his 2022 piece (Si apre in una nuova finestra) with the Spectator]

Events & Shows

Review: Lewis and Tolkien at Taproot Theater (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Broadway World]

The Arden Theatre (Si apre in una nuova finestra) Hobbit - starting in Philly in April - has a cute trailer [Youtube]

The Mineral Area Fine Arts Academy (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Park Hills, Missouri, is also putting on the Hobbit (Feb 14-16 (Si apre in una nuova finestra))

Robin Reid has the Tolkien Studies Area, PCA, Program (Si apre in una nuova finestra)(April, New Orleans).

For all events 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 & Fandom

Jason Fisher has C.S. Lewis by Joel Heck (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Cults, Hobbits, a missing student: Is MSU’s secret forest hideout lost to history? (Si apre in una nuova finestra)- about the MSU Tolkien Fellowship, ca. 1967-1982.

Tom Shippey on Waltharius, Beowulf, Tolkien, and Viking Humor (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Youtube]

Johnny Samson continues his report as an extra with the first season of LotR: RoP with Diary of a City Guard - Part 11 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Turkish Metal Band Ondolindë Releases ‘The Exile of the Noldor’, Inspired By Middle-Earth (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Metalheadzone; Bandcamp (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Ardacraft has Building Middle-earth in Minecraft – presented live to the Tolkien Society in Oxford (Si apre in una nuova finestra)[Youtube]

doubtfulsea has At Their Pleasure (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Stratofanatic has The Most Famous Dragon? (Si apre in una nuova finestra) And yes, Smaug is in there!

For this edition of the "Roving Ranger" I went through 1,000+ single news items. Curation time: 8½ hrs.

Merchandise & Franchise

Lord of the Rings Online Confirms Public 64-Bit Server Transfer Details, Cut-Off Date (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [MMORPG] | Lord of the Rings Online continues to test its new raid and clarify server transfer questions (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Massively Overpowered]

Tiny Glade (Si apre in una nuova finestra), a cosy, sandbox city-building game , is inspiring fans to do tiny Bag Ends (Si apre in una nuova finestra) etc. (Steam)

LotR: Duel for Middle-earth wins gaming trophy in Germany (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Ali Baba Spieleclub; BGG (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

No, Amazon Prime isn’t cancelling The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power season three over LGBTQ+ diversity (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Pink News]

Buffy seems to be returning - post from Sarah Michelle Gellar (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Facebook; h/t PhantaNews (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Inter alia & Back in the Day

Warner Bros. Discovery Creates Joint Venture for Film and TV Music Rights (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Hollywood Reporter]

Rebecca Yarros sells 12 million copies of her EMPYREAN series in under two years (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Wertzone]

Jurassic World: Rebirth has a trailer (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Big Five publishers band together in legal challenge against library 'book ban' (Si apre in una nuova finestra)[Bookseller]

Legendary Broadway and music artist David Edward Byrd has passed away. [Playbill (Si apre in una nuova finestra); Wikipedia (Si apre in una nuova finestra); Deadline (Si apre in una nuova finestra); PrintMag interview (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Fun fact: the lead narrative designer to Shadows of Mordor also was lead writer for Horizon: Zero Dawn (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (didn’t expect that; Eurogamer)

Yes, George R.R. Martin has his first peer-reviewed publication - in applied physics: Ergodic Lagrangian dynamics in a superhero universe (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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

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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