The One-hundred and third Roving Ranger

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Abre numa nova janela)

Life and Works

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

A Welsh (Abre numa nova janela)translation of The Hobbit (Abre numa nova janela) is now available - and ONLY - on pre-order (Abre numa nova janela). More information with [Nation Cymru (Abre numa nova janela)] | The Louxembourgish edition (Abre numa nova janela) is also available (again). [TCG]

Tolkien has been commemorated with a memorial at Pembroke College (Abre numa nova janela), Oxford. | Tolkien Society notice (Abre numa nova janela) | Pembroke College notice (Abre numa nova janela) | BBC notice (Abre numa nova janela) | Gabriel Schenk has some videos (Abre numa nova janela) [Instagram] | I had extensively written about this last year for my members at Steady (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela), including a bust of Tolkien, a copy of A Middle English Vocabulary, a Hobbit, and a personal letter (Abre numa nova janela) by Tolkien [TCG letter entry #310 (Abre numa nova janela)]

And NYC is the place to be this weekend with the NYTC happening again (Abre numa nova janela). Have fun at ideally named Baruch College!

The Chicago rendition of the Lord of the Rings Musical has announced its cast (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela) in San Jose, CA (September 2024). All available info here (Abre numa nova janela).

The Dutch Tolkien Society, Unquendor, has its Slotfeest on June 21-23 (Abre numa nova janela).

For all events (Abre numa nova janela) check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Abre numa nova janela) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela) [Taylor & Francis Online]

Oronzo Cilli has another post: Tolkien's Proposed Translation of Old Norse Egilssaga (Abre numa nova janela).

The 2024 Mythopoeic Awards (Abre numa nova janela) Finalists have been announced (Abre numa nova janela).

Manchester University Press has an upcoming book A book of monsters: Promethean horror in modern literature and culture (Abre numa nova janela), 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” (Abre numa nova janela) [paywall; institutional access].

Rob Maslen has a substantial piece on Gerald Bullett, The Spanish Caravel (1927), reissued as The Happy Mariners (1935) (Abre numa nova janela) - 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 (Abre numa nova janela) [arxiv.org (Abre numa nova janela), Cornell University]

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

Douglas A. Anderson has a note on one of Tolkien’s essential statements (Abre numa nova janela).

Franchise and Merchandise

LotR: The War of the Rohirrim has shown 20 mins. at Annecy (Abre numa nova janela). TORn has a lot of interviews on this (Abre numa nova janela). And Peter Jackson has joined the film as executive producer.

New Zealand’s Tree of the Year (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela)]

The new face of Adar: The Rings of Power star teases the orc leader's role in season 2 (Abre numa nova janela) [Entertainment Weekly] | Empire Magazine Confirms Annatar Name In The Rings of Power Season 2 (Abre numa nova janela) [TORn; Empire]

The Lord of the Rings Luxury Playing Cards (Abre numa nova janela)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 (Abre numa nova janela) (incl. Tales of the Shire) [Deadline; see also The Verge (Abre numa nova janela) for trailer]

TORn has an interview with the producers (Abre numa nova janela) of Tales of the Shire.

Inter alia & Back in the day

Ursula K. Le Guin’s home will become a place for writers’ residencies (Abre numa nova janela). [Literary Hub]

Certainly one of the oddest things on the web, NationStates (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela) lives in anarchy.

Star Trek received the institutional Peabody Award (Abre numa nova janela). [Official website (Abre numa nova janela)]

Handheld Press will closing by mid-2025 so now is the time to buy some ‘forgotten’ yet most excellent books (Abre numa nova janela).

A mural on a pub (Abre numa nova janela) in Oxford includes mentions to Inspector Morse, Carroll and Tolkien characters. [BBC; the Library Pub (Abre numa nova janela)]

The first ever HUGO was bought at auction by the convention that handed it out (Abre numa nova janela).

The Kurd Laßwitz Award winners have been announced (Abre numa nova janela) [science fiction novels; Germany]

Disney+ and other players are ceasing production of physical media (Abre numa nova janela) - 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 (Abre numa nova janela) (h/t PhantaNews (Abre numa nova janela)).

China Miéville Writes a Secret Novel With the Internet’s Boyfriend (Abre numa nova janela) [Wired; h/t Wertzone (Abre numa nova janela)]

If you are considering your modes of transportation:

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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.