The One hundred and twentieth Roving Ranger

Life & Works

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

• Third Age. Gandalf pursued the creature for eight days until they climbed to the peak of Zirakzigil (Abre numa nova janela), where they fought (Abre numa nova janela) for three days and two nights [death of the Balrog, Jan 25]

All information available with Tolkien Gateway (Abre numa nova janela).

Events & Shows

The Lord of the Rings: A Musical Tale review (Abre numa nova janela) [Guardian; for the Sydney edition] | [Broadway World (Abre numa nova janela)] | [Limelight Magazine (Abre numa nova janela)] | [Scenestr (Abre numa nova janela)]

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 (Abre numa nova janela).”

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

France sees an online event with Fandival (Abre numa nova janela) pulling together four fandoms: GoT, HP, Tolkien, and WoT (Jan 25-25).

The New England Youth Theatre (Abre numa nova janela) in Brattleboro, VT, is doing a Puppet Design and Build Workshop (Abre numa nova janela) for their upcoming Hobbit stage adaptation.

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

Scholarship & Fandom

Nominations open for Tolkien Society Awards 2025 (Abre numa nova janela) (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 (Abre numa nova janela). [Youtube]

The conference proceedings of the Mythopoeic Society’s “Something Mighty Queer” are now available online (Abre numa nova janela).

Jason Fisher has A short review of The Mythmakers (Abre numa nova janela).

PlaymOkapix (Abre numa nova janela) has done Thorin's Charge - in Playmobil. [Youtube]

Andrew Higgins has Early Elvish Pronouns and The 1920's Early Qenya Grammar (Abre numa nova janela).

The New York Times has a (paywalled?) article on the most excellent Karen Wynn Fonstad (Abre numa nova janela) of the Atlas of Middle-earth; Jeff LaSala has some thoughts about her work (Abre numa nova janela).

Sørina Higgins has Barfield Halfway Along Life’s Journey (Abre numa nova janela).

The JTR issue 20/2 has another piece: The English and the Welsh: Tolkien’s Rewriting of History in the Legendarium (Abre numa nova janela).

Merchandise & Franchise

Lord of the Rings Online’s lead explains how the new 64-bit servers are going to work (Abre numa nova janela) [Massively Overpowered]

The steelbook edition of LotR: War of the Rohirrim has a date with Amazon - Feb 18 (Abre numa nova janela).

A new merchandise agreement (Abre numa nova janela) 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 (Abre numa nova janela). [Guardian; Penguin (Abre numa nova janela); h/t David Bratman (Abre numa nova janela)]

David Lynch has passed away (Abre numa nova janela). [Wertzone; BBC (Abre numa nova janela); Variety (Abre numa nova janela)]

Ellen Kushner has Progress and Resolutions (Abre numa nova janela). [Substack]

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

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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