The One hundred and forty-eighth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

August 1, 2008. Pauline Baynes (Abre numa nova janela), Tolkien's favourite artist, dies.
August 2, 1964. Tolkien writes Letter 258 (Abre numa nova janela), on the real-life usage of Tolkien's words.
August 2, 1966. Tolkien is interviewed by William Cater (Abre numa nova janela) (see quote below).
August 3, 1991. Priscilla Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) speaks on "J.R.R. Tolkien: Scholar and Storyteller" at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library in Washington, D.C.
August 4, 1953. Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) is angry over the fact that an editor at Allen and Unwin (Abre numa nova janela) has corrected dwarves to dwarfs, elvish to elfish, further to farther, and worst of all, elven to elfin.
August 5, 2002. The History of Middle-earth Index (Abre numa nova janela) is published.
August 7, 1954. Tolkien writes Letter 148 (Abre numa nova janela), on nasturtians, a busy year.

The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read them.¹

Events & Shows

Aug 4-8, 2005. The first ever Omentielva (Abre numa nova janela) takes place in Stockholm, the International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Invented Languages.

When visiting Oxford it has been quite strange not to have an official tourist information centre. The Clarion (Abre numa nova janela) reports that the city has now ‘opened’ eleven so-called ‘tourism hubs’ (Abre numa nova janela) to alleviate some of the issues.

The Pembroke College-based Tolkien Lecture is now available as a podcast (Abre numa nova janela). [Spotify]

If you are in the Santa Cruz (CA) area you might like to join the Hobbit Hikers (Abre numa nova janela). [Meetup]

Auditions for the 2025-2026 ACT! for Youth season will be for The Hobbit at Wilson Art (Abre numa nova janela); this weekend (NC).

Tolkien Society Seminar 2025 – Arda’s Entangled Bodies and Environments (Abre numa nova janela) [Oct 18-19]²

As this is the first home game of the season the only Tolkien-inspired football fan club worldwide, Jenas Tirith (Abre numa nova janela), will be out in full force, with Tolkien scholar guest Hamish Williams (Abre numa nova janela) joining us at stadium block G = Gandalf. [See Instagram for photos (Abre numa nova janela)]

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

Thoughts on Tolkien has Tolkien’s Greek Horsemen (Abre numa nova janela).

Oronzo Cilli has The Wilton Diptych: a gift from Tolkien to the Convent of Santa Colette in Assisi (Abre numa nova janela).

doubtfulsea has Pippin (Abre numa nova janela).

Society calls for Tolkien to feature on a new bank note (Abre numa nova janela)[Tolkien Society; see also BBC (Abre numa nova janela)]

The archivist in charge of 11,000 pages of original Lord of the Rings drafts at Marquette University (Abre numa nova janela) [Milwaukee Tonight]

Merchandise & Franchise

Rebecca Romney has an uncorrected proof of Tree & Leaf, owned by W.H. Auden (Abre numa nova janela) [Youtube]

Office Dog Game has Announcing The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers™ Trick Taking Game (Abre numa nova janela).

A Return to Moria expansion is coming at the end of this year (Abre numa nova janela). [GameSpot]

The Rings Of Power Season 3 Enters Production As Amazon Teases Sauron’s Return (Abre numa nova janela) [Empire]

The Free League LotR RPG starter set has just been published (Abre numa nova janela).

It's been a rough decade for Lord of The Rings games (Abre numa nova janela) [Polygon]

Inside the struggle to create a cozy Lord of the Rings game (Abre numa nova janela) [Verge]

The first reviews are coming in: Tales of the Shire. IGN (Abre numa nova janela) | Polygon (Abre numa nova janela) | PC Gamer (Abre numa nova janela) (Youtube) | Guardian (Abre numa nova janela) | Tea with Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) (Bluesky) | TolkienGuide, by Urulókë (Abre numa nova janela)

• dreadfully boring and extremely buggy [IGN]

• It's a great premise, but these Hobbitses fail to stick the landing [Polygon]

• too cosy for comfort [Guardian]

• A game that could’ve been life-changing ended up pretty “meh”… 6/10 [Tea with Tolkien]

Inter alia

There’s A Huge Petition To Rename Birmingham Airport After Ozzy Osbourne – And BHX Has Responded With Its Plans To Honour The Black Sabbath Legend (Abre numa nova janela) [Secret Birmingham; JRRT named]

‘South Park’ Season 27 Premiere Draws Nearly 6M Viewers, Marks Franchise’s Biggest Cable Share Since 1999 (Abre numa nova janela) [Cartoon Brew]

Given the fact that I am on a ST: VOY rewatch right now this looks fun to me: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Abre numa nova janela) | First Look Teaser [Youtube]

Brian Sibley has Tom Lehrer (Abre numa nova janela).

Simon Tolkien Shares His Writing Secrets! (Abre numa nova janela) [Youtube]

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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.

1. William Cater (Abre numa nova janela), The Sunday Times (UK), 2 January 1972. ↩

2. h/t Ian M (Abre numa nova janela) [Bluesky] ↩