The Ninety-fourth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

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

A scan of the Tolkien Family Album has been made available via Archive.org (Abre numa nova janela).

Events & Shows

Jordan Rannells of the Soundscapes project has brought together a great team to do A Long-Expected Soundscape: Holiday Special (Abre numa nova janela) (Dec 10).

The touring Magic of Middle-earth (Abre numa nova janela) exhibition continues to draws crowds.

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

Why this very old piece (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela) is happening in Spain.

The Dutch TS is having its Joelfest (Abre numa nova janela) on Dec 16.

Scholarship and Fandom

The Athrabeth (Abre numa nova janela) podcast did an interview with Tom Hillman on his upcoming book.

David Bratman has the content (Abre numa nova janela) of the upcoming Tolkien Studies volume (20).

John D. Rateliff has a few thoughts (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela) between Tolkien and Katharine Briggs. In addition to that he reminds us (Abre numa nova janela) of a list of people obviously important to JRRT.

The Tolkien Society has issued a Call for Papers for the 2024 Seminar (Abre numa nova janela).

I am happy to see Eric Mueller-Harder (Abre numa nova janela) has posted again with tolkienists.org (Abre numa nova janela) after a very long hiatus.

Dimitra Fimi has shared her paper Tolkien and the Fairies: Faith and Folklore (Abre numa nova janela).

John Garth talked to Alan Sisto about his upcoming book, Tolkien’s Mirror (Abre numa nova janela). [Youtube]

There are the oddest of places when The Lord of the Rings pop up - including reddit relationship moments (Abre numa nova janela). [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 (Abre numa nova janela).

Robin Reid is working on a bibliography for Feminist/Gender/Queer Tolkien Scholarship (Abre numa nova janela). [free registration needed with Substack] She also has the Call for Papers (Abre numa nova janela) for the Tolkien Studies Area with the PCA (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela) [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. (Abre numa nova janela) [Guardian]

20 years on, a transformed New Zealand looks back at ‘Lord of the Rings’ (Abre numa nova janela) [LA Times]

The franchise tourism in New Zealand is reaching new heights with the opening of Bagshot Row (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela) [NYT, paywall]

Possibly one of the most hilarious headlines of this year: Why Lord Of The Rings: Gollum Should Win Game Of The Year (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela).

Meloni, Tolkien and Italy’s fellowship of the ring (Abre numa nova janela) [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 (Abre numa nova janela). [some monthly free articles with free registration]

Vanity Fair has Star Wars Undertakes Universe-Shaking Changes After Ahsoka (Abre numa nova janela).

Star Trek seems to add a major podcast (Abre numa nova janela) on Khan.

On the 60th Anniversary (Abre numa nova janela) of Doctor Who.

The Dark Magazine (Abre numa nova janela) has moved away from Amazon and is happy for any support (Abre numa nova janela) to cover their losses - support independent magazines as much as you can like Clarkesworld (Abre numa nova janela) or Interzone (Abre numa nova janela) (or whatever great magazine you love!)

Ansible 436 (Abre numa nova janela) has been published.

The BBC obviously pulled out all the stops for Shakespeare 400 (Abre numa nova janela).

GRRM shared the trailer for the second season of House of the Dragon via his blog (Abre numa nova janela) - and quite a few words on his recent work stay (Abre numa nova janela) in London.

You can now get the map of Earthsea in a stunning limited edition (Abre numa nova janela).

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 (Abre numa nova janela). [PNAS Nexus]

The Star Wars fan community has been loving (and loathing) the infamous Holidays’ special. Now there is a documentary (Abre numa nova janela) 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.

If you are interested in my other Tolkien-related work please have a look:
The Tolkienist Blog (Abre numa nova janela) : Facebook (Abre numa nova janela) : Bluesky (Abre numa nova janela) : Instagram (Abre numa nova janela) : Xitter (Abre numa nova janela)

If you happen to use Feedly (Abre numa nova janela) - why not subscribe to one of their most popular Tolkien blogs: thetolkienist.com ☺️