The One hundred and forty-third Roving Ranger

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Life and Works

June 27, 1916. Tolkien leaves Étaples (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), and goes to the Somme front (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
June 28, 1915. Tolkien applies at the Oxford (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) recruiting office to join the army (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).
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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) is one of the first of the 360,000 British casualties of the Battle of the Somme (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) when he is hit by a shell at La Boiselle (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Third Age (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), 3018 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster): Boromir (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) sets out from Minas Tirith (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) to ask for counsel at Rivendell (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).[July 4]

Parma Eldalamberon 17: Words, Phrases & Passages in The Lord of the Rings is available again on demand at The Great British Bookshop (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) and Barnes & Noble (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

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

Events & Shows

The Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor is celebrating its Slotfeest this weekend (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Holly Ordway has a report from Paris: The Christian Consonance of Middle-earth: A Landmark International Conference. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Word on Fire]

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Will Sherwood has The Fantastic Symphony of Middle-earth (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Jason Fisher has “The Ulsterior Motive” and other unpublished writings of Tolkien (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Journal of Tolkien Research has Bilbo's Boethian Heroism (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

doubttfulsea has Starre-crost (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Oxford Tolkien Network has added more videos (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) of their talks’ series.¹

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

https://www.miriamellis.com/post/the-deep-and-humorous-riches-of-the-quest-of-erebor (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Merchandise & Franchise

Matt Leacock has Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship – Design Diary (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

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

LEGO Ideas has A Night to Remember in The Shire (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [enter your builds into the competition until Aug 6.]

Amazon has announced a sweeping £40 billion investment in the UK (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [Business Matters; see press release (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).]

Inter alia

Christopher Lockett has Supplemental Sourcery Thoughts (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) [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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

The Locus Awards winners have been announced (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).³

Robert Reich (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) has The Most Dangerous Corporation in America (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (Palantir). [Substack]

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

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General info

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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), Bookshop.org (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), or Genialokal (Öffnet in neuem Fenster), 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 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Facebook (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Bluesky (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Instagram (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Threads (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) : Mastodon (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

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.