The One hundred and forty-fifth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

July 12, 1973. Tolkien is awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Edinburgh (Si apre in una nuova finestra).
July 13, 1949. Tolkien writes Letter 121 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), on a possible sequel to Farmer Giles.
July 14, 1916. The 11th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers (including J.R.R. Tolkien) is sent into action at the Somme (Si apre in una nuova finestra) front.
July 15, 1919. Tolkien is officially released from service, well over a year after the war (Si apre in una nuova finestra)'s end.
July 16, 1940. Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment (Si apre in una nuova finestra), with contributions from Tolkien, is published.
July 18, 1962. Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra) writes Letter 238 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), on money, health, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Sir Gawain (Si apre in una nuova finestra), details about Pearl (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

• Third Age (Si apre in una nuova finestra), 301 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)9: A great feast is held in Merethrond (Si apre in una nuova finestra): Gimli (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and Éomer (Si apre in una nuova finestra) come to an agreement over the lady Galadriel (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [July 18]

Events & Shows

Karen Wynn'-Fonstad’s work [Atlas of Middle-earth etc.] will be exhibited for the first time ever (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [July 21 - August 1; plus additional programming in Madison, Wisconsin]

The Grey Havens Philosophy team is having their ‘first mondays’ LotR discussion group on Aug 8 (Si apre in una nuova finestra), [Longmont, Colorado]

The Parody of the Rings is a show on tour in England right now. [London, July 25 (Si apre in una nuova finestra); Edinburgh, July 30 (Si apre in una nuova finestra)ff, see official website (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

Review: Lord of the Rings A Musical Tale, Gold Coast [The Scoop]

The sound & stage tech company for the concerts with the Tolkien Days in Germany gets a blog post with LSI (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Knoxville Children’s Theatre (Tennessee) is putting on The Hobbit in August (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

“The Lost Trees” (Si apre in una nuova finestra) exhibition at the Garden Museum, London, includes ‘Tolkien’s black pine (Si apre in una nuova finestra)’ [until July 20]

Birmingham and metal legend Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath likened Sabbath’s original drummer Bill Ward to Gollum (Si apre in una nuova finestra) in last week’s farewell show ‘Back to the Beginning’ [Blabbermouth.net (Si apre in una nuova finestra)]

And I don't think he knew who Gollum was. He's always always been the same, Bill. He just doesn't care. He goes on and does what he wants, which is great. That's always been Bill.

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

Robin Reid has Tolkien at Kalamazoo, International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS), May 14-16, 2026 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). Also, Queer Approaches to Tolkien: Essays on the Many Paths to Middle-earth is now available for pre-order (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Substack]

The creative uses of Irish literature in works by J.R.R. Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra)(PhD thesis) by Kristine Swank is available for download with the University of Glasgow.

Tolkien et la mémoire de l'Antiquité (Si apre in una nuova finestra) by Isabelle Pantin & Sandra Provini will be available Aug 22, 2025. [Tolkiendil]

The Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide has a number of new entries: Tolkien Theme - Bilbo’s Last Song (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Weapons (Si apre in una nuova finestra), Stationary, Music CDs (Si apre in una nuova finestra), and Non-Music CDs (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Tom Hillman has The Tides Of Time, The Tides Of Fate, And The Power Of Song (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Journal of Tolkien Research]

Stephen C. Winter has “Sleep Then, Master. Lay Your Head in My Lap.” Some Thoughts on Sam’s Love For Frodo (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Vlatka Rolanda, Anje Batina i Dragana Tasića (Si apre in una nuova finestra) have published a book in Hungary to promote interest in GIS (Si apre in una nuova finestra) tools by rendering a Middle-earth map.¹

I have added another Not a Tolkien quote: He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

doubtfulsea has Bard (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

Blackwell’s showing off its Tolkien chops on Instagram (Si apre in una nuova finestra):

Did you know that we were the first bookshop to publish Tolkien? Admittedly, it was for a work of his poetry in 1915, entitled Goblin’s Feet, but we’re still pretty chuffed about it.

Emerald has done the Top 50 Musicals Edition (Si apre in una nuova finestra) for this year, including LotR. [tumblr]

Merchandise & Franchise

Donato Giancola has a progress development on his Argonath (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [Muddy Colors]

Ed Sheeran celebrated “I see fire” reaching one billion streams (Si apre in una nuova finestra) on Spotify, thanking the NZ team for inviting him at short notice to write the song. [Instagram]

'The Lord of the Rings' Director, 63, Breaks Silence on His Filmmaking Future After 11-Year Directing Hiatus (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Collider]

The ENNIE Awards (Si apre in una nuova finestra) (RPG) are happening, you can vote (Si apre in una nuova finestra) for the Free League LotR RPG!

Planning refused for major tourism and leisure park at long-derelict South Kerry hotel (Si apre in una nuova finestra) [Radio Kerry; including ‘six hobbit huts’]

The Tolkien Calendar for 2026 has been announced - The Great Tales of Middle-earth, with illustrations by Alan Lee. [July 17]

Inter alia

A public library in Canada, celebratings its 100th anniversary, invited writers, celebrities, politicians from all over the world to join in their celebrations - including Adam Nimoy and Simon Tolkien (Si apre in una nuova finestra).

The Other End Comics (Si apre in una nuova finestra) have won this week’s Middle-earth Award 😁

The New York Times has done “The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century”, both audience (Si apre in una nuova finestra) and professional critics (Si apre in una nuova finestra). [possible paywall]

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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 Tolkien Gleanings #310 (Si apre in una nuova finestra). ↩