The Ninety-fourth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

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

A scan of the Tolkien Family Album has been made available via Archive.org (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Events & Shows

Jordan Rannells of the Soundscapes project has brought together a great team to do A Long-Expected Soundscape: Holiday Special (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (Dec 10).

The touring Magic of Middle-earth (Si apre in una nuova finestra) exhibition continues to draws crowds.

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

Why this very old piece (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is happening in Spain.

The Dutch TS is having its Joelfest (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on Dec 16.

Scholarship and Fandom

The Athrabeth (Si apre in una nuova finestra) podcast did an interview with Tom Hillman on his upcoming book.

David Bratman has the content (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of the upcoming Tolkien Studies volume (20).

John D. Rateliff has a few thoughts (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) between Tolkien and Katharine Briggs. In addition to that he reminds us (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of a list of people obviously important to JRRT.

The Tolkien Society has issued a Call for Papers for the 2024 Seminar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

I am happy to see Eric Mueller-Harder (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has posted again with tolkienists.org (Si apre in una nuova finestra) after a very long hiatus.

Dimitra Fimi has shared her paper Tolkien and the Fairies: Faith and Folklore (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

John Garth talked to Alan Sisto about his upcoming book, Tolkien’s Mirror (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Youtube]

There are the oddest of places when The Lord of the Rings pop up - including reddit relationship moments (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [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. (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Guardian]

20 years on, a transformed New Zealand looks back at ‘Lord of the Rings’ (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [LA Times]

The franchise tourism in New Zealand is reaching new heights with the opening of Bagshot Row (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [NYT, paywall]

Possibly one of the most hilarious headlines of this year: Why Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Should Win Game Of The Year (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Meloni, Tolkien and Italy’s fellowship of the ring (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [some monthly free articles with free registration]

Vanity Fair has Star Wars Undertakes Universe-Shaking Changes After Ahsoka (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Star Trek seems to add a major podcast (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on Khan.

On the 60th Anniversary (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of Doctor Who.

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

Ansible 436 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has been published.

The BBC obviously pulled out all the stops for Shakespeare 400 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

GRRM shared the trailer for the second season of House of the Dragon via his blog (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - and quite a few words on his recent work stay (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in London.

You can now get the map of Earthsea in a stunning limited edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [PNAS Nexus]

The Star Wars fan community has been loving (and loathing) the infamous Holidays’ special. Now there is a documentary (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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.

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