The One-hundred and fifth Roving Ranger

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

Life and Works

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

All date (Si apre in una nuova finestra)s are tak (Si apre in una nuova finestra)en from Tolkien Gateway. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

A (Si apre in una nuova finestra)must have - (Si apre in una nuova finestra) the exhibition catalogue (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to the Tolkien tapestries’ project (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Aubusson [FR/EN]; on the exhibition (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Actual News, EN], and the original post (Si apre in una nuova finestra) with France Info [FR].

The single most expensive copy of The Hobbit has been sold for $300,000 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [ArtDaily].

Publisher overwhelmed by response to Welsh Hobbit (Si apre in una nuova finestra)[Nation Cymru]

Events & Shows

An exceptional collection of Tolkien letters, calligraphy (Si apre in una nuova finestra) etc. has just come under the hammer. [Sotheby’s]

French Association Tolkiendil have published a video of the opening (Si apre in una nuova finestra) 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has a Call for Papers - due September 2024 - on A Special Issue of Children’s Literature Association Quarterly (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [PDF]

The Tolkien Society has teamed up with the Serbian Tolkien Society (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to offer their hybrid seminar (Belgrade & online) on Dec 7-8: Tolkien as Heritage (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

If you happen to be in Connecticut in November why not have a look at the 2nd Annual Hobbit Harvest: Farmers market & Craft (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in Salem (free)

The John Howe exhibition is now on in Tampere, Finland (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The German Tolkien Society’s Tolkien Thing is happening this weekend (Si apre in una nuova finestra); the guest society is Finland, the GoH German Tolkien publisher’s - Hobbitpresse (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - editor, Stephan Askani.

The LotR Musical (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is starting its run in Chicago on July 19. And it is coming to New Zealand (Si apre in una nuova finestra) as well [What’s on Stage]

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

The Tales after Tolkien Society has announced that the upcoming IMC (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has accepted their proposal: Return of the Franchise: Twenty-First-Century Continuations of Tolkien's Medievalism (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Signum Press have published a CfP for a Philology Anthology (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

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

French collector Rodrigue Petit (Instagram: rodchess (Si apre in una nuova finestra)) has written an article on his hobby for The Introvert (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Giovanni Carmine Costabile’s The Mirror of Desire Unbidden: Retrieving the Imago Dei in Tolkien and Late Medieval English Literature (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is freely available as eBook and PDF [Peter Lang]

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

Composer and conductor Johan de Meji (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (LotR Symphony #1 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)) has handed over his archives to the Library of Congress (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (Facebook).

Volume 19, issue 1, of the Journal of Tolkien Research has added number of reviews and conference papers (Si apre in una nuova finestra) recently.

Tom Hillman has some thoughts on Face up, Face down with Gollum and Boethius (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Robin Reid has announced a new publication: Critical Explorations in Tolkien Studies (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and has invited Advisory Board applications (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Substack]

Miriam Ellis has some thoughts on: The Fine Frailty of Gandalf and the Long Service of Círdan (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Andrew Higgins has shared the CFP for Tolkien at Leeds International Medieval Congress (Si apre in una nuova finestra). (7-10 July 2025)

Franchise and Merchandise

The amazing Kiran Shah has been made an MBE (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Independent; Wikipedia (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). And a first look of Cirdan (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Entertainment Weekly] | Meet The Rings Of Power’s New Hill-Troll, Inspired By Breaking Bad’s Mike Ehrmantraut (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Empire] | The LotR: Rings of Power will be coming to San Diego Comic Con (Si apre in una nuova finestra), inviting many influencers along the way. Also, TORn has much on the beginning publicity tour (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on Season 2.

The Tolkien Calendar 2025 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is published on July 18th.

The Hobbiton movie set came #10 in a piece on “most magical travel destinations (Si apre in una nuova finestra)”; 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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Massively OP]

Bag End (Si apre in una nuova finestra) might be LEGO’ed. [Brick Fanatics]

Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, and Ian McKellen get together for food travelog (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Deadline]

Inter alia & Back in the day

St John Henry Newman College, a “new school in the classical tradition” to be launched in Brisbane (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [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 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Northern Echo]

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

A review of The Island by Nicholas Jenkins (Si apre in una nuova finestra) mentions Tolkien.

‘Harry Potter’ TV Series WON’T Replace the Films, Will Acknowledge Them as Canon, WB Confirms (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Inside the Magic]

Ansible 444 (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has been published.

How big of a deal are the HUGOs (Si apre in una nuova finestra)? [File 770]

Mary Robinette Kowal has a Kickstarter (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on an upcoming anthology.

David Bratman has a few comments on the Harlan Ellison book project (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Paramount Global Officially Agrees To Skydance Merger (Si apre in una nuova finestra), With Potential Big Impact On Star Trek’s Future [trekmovie.com (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

An in-depth interview: ILM’s chief creative officer reveals the secrets of building the Star Wars universe (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Fast Company]

George R.R. Martin has questions on his chocolate self. (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

Bracket symbols, well explained: (Si apre in una nuova finestra)

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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.