The One hundred and fortieth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

June 7, 1957. Marquette University (Abre numa nova janela) acquires many of Tolkien's manuscripts for £1,500 (worth £50,714.96 in 202 (Abre numa nova janela)5).
June 8, 1961. Tolkien writes Letter 230 (Abre numa nova janela), on Aragorn and languages.
June 9, 1963. Tolkien's paper "English and Welsh (Abre numa nova janela)" is published in Angles and Britons: O'Donnell Lectures (Abre numa nova janela), a collection of lectures from the University of Wales.
June 10, 1915. Exams start at Oxford University (Abre numa nova janela). Because of the war (Abre numa nova janela), only Tolkien and 24 others remain in the entire University. Tolkien would join the Army the same month, but wanted to finish his exams first.
June 11, 1953. Pearl (Abre numa nova janela), edited by E.V. Gordon (Abre numa nova janela) and including a contribution by Tolkien, is published.

Events & Shows

The largest Tolkien-centred event in the world (afaik), the Tolkien Days in Germany, organised by the German Tolkien Society (Abre numa nova janela) and its local branch at the Lower Rhine (Abre numa nova janela), are celebrating their 15th anniversary and possibly more then 14,000 visitors (a new record.) [Jun 12-15; off. website (Abre numa nova janela) | FB in English (Abre numa nova janela)].
You can catch me there as a speaker, podcast coordinator, and the Tolkienist. 😅

These marathons are happening the world over at any given time but as this one’s well-announced I’ll share it as an example: Go to Australia (St. Kilda, near Melbourne) if you like. [LotR EEs shown (Abre numa nova janela); Jun 28]

Tolkien exhibit at Ball State University. [until end of July (Abre numa nova janela); Muncie, Indiana. The collection has 50+ books on Tolkien + merchandise & memorabilia from the films.]

A talk by Eliot Vale in Oxford: Imitative Translations of Beowulf: Tolkien, Lehmann, and McCully (Abre numa nova janela) [Jun 13]

Tulsa Youth Opera to Present ‘The Hobbit’ [Jun 7-8] (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

Andrew Higgins has Book Review - The Map of Wilderland by Amber Lehning (Abre numa nova janela). [Substack]

Miriam Ellis has The Founding of the Fellowship at the Edge of a Forest.

2025 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists Announced (Abre numa nova janela).

Arda Philology 8 can now be ordered online (Abre numa nova janela).

Lord of the Rings Online devs weigh in on the fate of the MMO’s old 32-bit servers (Abre numa nova janela) [Massively OP]

doubtfulsea has Babeling (Abre numa nova janela).

Thoughts on Tolkien has Beowulf and the Bard (Abre numa nova janela).

Watch the Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee with an exclusive deal for The Lord of the Rings fans (Abre numa nova janela) [TORn; use promo code ONERING for the digital download; (Abre numa nova janela)50% off.]

Stephen C. Winter has “Adventures, as I Used to Call Them.” Sam Gamgee Ponders the True Nature of Adventure Before the Hobbits Try to Enter the Nameless Land (Abre numa nova janela).

Merchandise & Franchise

The Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale (Abre numa nova janela) [Australian Book Review]

Matt Leacock's new Lord of the Rings board game is like Pandemic but even better (Abre numa nova janela) [Wargamer]

Bardic Brewing & Cider in Spokane has TOLKIEN on tap. [off. website (Abre numa nova janela) | IG (Abre numa nova janela)]

Inter alia

How the Right Abuses Tolkien (Abre numa nova janela) [Current Affairs]

Guilermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (Abre numa nova janela) has a trailer¹. [Youtube]

Inside Hollywood’s Succession Wars (Abre numa nova janela) [Hollywood Reporter]

Planets and Plastic: A History of the SFWA Trophies and Awards (Abre numa nova janela).

xkcd wins again.

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

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

Do use my invite link (Abre numa nova janela) and start with three months fee-free.
[Transparency note: I get a small referral bonus with no extra costs to you.]

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 (Abre numa nova janela), Bookshop.org (Abre numa nova janela), or Genialokal (Abre numa nova janela), 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 (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. h/t PhantaNews (Abre numa nova janela). ↩