The One hundred and forty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

June 27, 1916. Tolkien leaves Étaples (Si apre in una nuova finestra), and goes to the Somme front (Si apre in una nuova finestra).
June 28, 1915. Tolkien applies at the Oxford (Si apre in una nuova finestra) recruiting office to join the army (Si apre in una nuova finestra).
June 28, 1919. The Treaty of Versailles is signed and the First World War officially ends.
June 29, 1917. Tolkien succumbs to gastritis while at Brocton Camp, and is sent to Brooklands Officers' Hospital in Kingston-upon-Hull.
July 1, 1916. Robert Gilson (Si apre in una nuova finestra) is one of the first of the 360,000 British casualties of the Battle of the Somme (Si apre in una nuova finestra) when he is hit by a shell at La Boiselle (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

• Third Age (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 3018 (Si apre in una nuova finestra): Boromir (Si apre in una nuova finestra) sets out from Minas Tirith (Si apre in una nuova finestra) to ask for counsel at Rivendell (Si apre in una nuova finestra).[July 4]

Parma Eldalamberon 17: Words, Phrases & Passages in The Lord of the Rings is available again on demand at The Great British Bookshop (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and Barnes & Noble (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Barbara Holdridge (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the audio book pioneer and co-founder of Caedmon Audio (Si apre in una nuova finestra), has passed away (much of the recorded material by Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra), CJRT and Donald Swann has been published first with Caedmon; it is now a subdivision of HarperCollins.). [Obituaries: Observer (Si apre in una nuova finestra) | Publishers Weekly (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Events & Shows

The Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor is celebrating its Slotfeest this weekend (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Holly Ordway has a report from Paris: The Christian Consonance of Middle-earth: A Landmark International Conference. (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Word on Fire]

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

Stephen C. winter has “You May Know, or Guess, What Kind of a Tale it is… But The People in It Don’t Know. And You Don’t Want Them To.” Frodo Speaks About The Best Kind of Stories (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Will Sherwood has The Fantastic Symphony of Middle-earth (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Jason Fisher has “The Ulsterior Motive” and other unpublished writings of Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Journal of Tolkien Research has Bilbo's Boethian Heroism (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

doubttfulsea has Starre-crost (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Oxford Tolkien Network has added more videos (Si apre in una nuova finestra) of their talks’ series.¹

Miriam Ellis has The Deep and Humorous Riches of The Quest of Erebor.

Merchandise & Franchise

Matt Leacock has Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship – Design Diary (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

One of the best board games out there is getting a new lease of life - via crowdfunding: The Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation Ultimate Edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

This Infamous 'Lord of the Rings' Movie Is Getting a Special Edition 15 Years After Its Original Blu-ray Release (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Collider; on the Ralph Bakshi film]

LEGO Ideas has A Night to Remember in The Shire (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [enter your builds into the competition until Aug 6.]

Amazon has announced a sweeping £40 billion investment in the UK (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Business Matters; see press release (Si apre in una nuova finestra).]

Inter alia

Christopher Lockett has Supplemental Sourcery Thoughts (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [on Pratchett, Tolkien et al.; Substack]

The recent screening of a first print of the first Star Wars film has led to a lot of negative, clickbaity posts; good to see NPR offers This is not the 'Star Wars' you thought you knew (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Locus Awards winners have been announced (Si apre in una nuova finestra).²

Probably one of the dumbest ‘games’ out there, Ultimate Epic Battle Simulator (1 & 2), allows you to pit millions of units from all periods and all imaginations to fight each other. A recent example? The Battle of Helms’s Deep but with chicken and ostriches defending (Si apre in una nuova finestra).³

Robert Reich (Si apre in una nuova finestra) has The Most Dangerous Corporation in America (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (Palantir). [Substack]

Thinking about starting a newsletter, podcast, Patreon, Substack etc.?

Then do consider using Steady (Si apre in una nuova finestra) - it is an exceptionally easy to use option for all needs. Built originally for an independent journalists’ collective, Krautreporter (Si apre in una nuova finestra), it is run by creative minds for creative minds. Think Patreon, just better. It is based in Germany, free of enshittification (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and nazis.

Do use my invite link (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and start with three months fee-free.
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According to German law I have to inform you all links to enterprises, artists, products etc. are [unpaid advertisements.] Some purchase links may earn me a small commission from Blackwell's (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Bookshop.org (Si apre in una nuova finestra), or Genialokal (Si apre in una nuova finestra), the (independent) bookshops of my personal trust (one with a Tolkien connection!)

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.

1. h/t TolkienGuide (Si apre in una nuova finestra). ↩

2. h/t File770 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). ↩

3. h/t to things my girl ❤️ sends me on IG. ↩