The One hundred and twentieth Roving Ranger

Life & Works

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

• Third Age. Gandalf pursued the creature for eight days until they climbed to the peak of Zirakzigil (Si apre in una nuova finestra), where they fought (Si apre in una nuova finestra) for three days and two nights [death of the Balrog, Jan 25]

All information available with Tolkien Gateway (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Events & Shows

The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale review (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Guardian; for the Sydney edition] | [Broadway World (Si apre in una nuova finestra)] | [Limelight Magazine (Si apre in una nuova finestra)] | [Scenestr (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).”

The HOTA (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Australia has an exhibition coming up in April called “Writers Revealed (Si apre in una nuova finestra): 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has a conference coming up: Beyond Elvish. Constructed Languages in Fantastic Worlds (Sept 2025). (CfP in German/English (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [pdf]; deadline Feb 28)

France sees an online event with Fandival (Si apre in una nuova finestra) pulling together four fandoms: GoT, HP, Tolkien, and WoT (Jan 25-25).

The New England Youth Theatre (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Brattleboro, VT, is doing a Puppet Design and Build Workshop (Si apre in una nuova finestra) for their upcoming Hobbit stage adaptation.

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

Nominations open for Tolkien Society Awards 2025 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Youtube]

The conference proceedings of the Mythopoeic Society’s “Something Mighty Queer” are now available online (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Jason Fisher has A short review of The Mythmakers (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

PlaymOkapix (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has done Thorin's Charge - in Playmobil. [Youtube]

Andrew Higgins has Early Elvish Pronouns and The 1920's Early Qenya Grammar (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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

Sørina Higgins has Barfield Halfway Along Life’s Journey (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The JTR issue 20/2 has another piece: The English and the Welsh: Tolkien’s Rewriting of History in the Legendarium (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Merchandise & Franchise

Lord of the Rings Online’s lead explains how the new 64-bit servers are going to work (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Massively Overpowered]

The steelbook edition of LotR: War of the Rohirrim has a date with Amazon - Feb 18 (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

A new merchandise agreement (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Guardian; Penguin (Si apre in una nuova finestra); h/t David Bratman (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

David Lynch has passed away (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Wertzone; BBC (Si apre in una nuova finestra); Variety (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Ellen Kushner has Progress and Resolutions (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Substack]

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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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