The One hundred and forty-third Roving Ranger

Life and Works

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

• Third Age (Opens in a new window), 3018 (Opens in a new window): Boromir (Opens in a new window) sets out from Minas Tirith (Opens in a new window) to ask for counsel at Rivendell (Opens in a new window).[July 4]

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

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

Events & Shows

The Dutch Tolkien Society Unquendor is celebrating its Slotfeest this weekend (Opens in a new window).

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

For all events check out the International Tolkien Fellowship (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window).

Will Sherwood has The Fantastic Symphony of Middle-earth (Opens in a new window).

Jason Fisher has “The Ulsterior Motive” and other unpublished writings of Tolkien (Opens in a new window).

The Journal of Tolkien Research has Bilbo's Boethian Heroism (Opens in a new window).

doubttfulsea has Starre-crost (Opens in a new window).

The Oxford Tolkien Network has added more videos (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window).

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 (Opens in a new window).

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

LEGO Ideas has A Night to Remember in The Shire (Opens in a new window) [enter your builds into the competition until Aug 6.]

Amazon has announced a sweeping £40 billion investment in the UK (Opens in a new window) [Business Matters; see press release (Opens in a new window).]

Inter alia

Christopher Lockett has Supplemental Sourcery Thoughts (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window).

The Locus Awards winners have been announced (Opens in a new window).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 (Opens in a new window).³

Robert Reich (Opens in a new window) has The Most Dangerous Corporation in America (Opens in a new window) (Palantir). [Substack]

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

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

Do use my invite link (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window), Bookshop.org (Opens in a new window), or Genialokal (Opens in a new window), 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 (Opens in a new window) : Facebook (Opens in a new window) : Bluesky (Opens in a new window) : Instagram (Opens in a new window) : Threads (Opens in a new window) : Mastodon (Opens in a new window).

Have a look at all Roving Rangers published so far. (Opens in a new window)

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 (Opens in a new window). ↩

2. h/t File770 (Opens in a new window). ↩

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