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 (Opens in a new window).
July 13, 1949. Tolkien writes Letter 121 (Opens in a new window), 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 (Opens in a new window) front.
July 15, 1919. Tolkien is officially released from service, well over a year after the war (Opens in a new window)'s end.
July 16, 1940. Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment (Opens in a new window), with contributions from Tolkien, is published.
July 18, 1962. Tolkien (Opens in a new window) writes Letter 238 (Opens in a new window), on money, health, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (Opens in a new window), Sir Gawain (Opens in a new window), details about Pearl (Opens in a new window).

• Third Age (Opens in a new window), 301 (Opens in a new window)9: A great feast is held in Merethrond (Opens in a new window): Gimli (Opens in a new window) and Éomer (Opens in a new window) come to an agreement over the lady Galadriel (Opens in a new window). [July 18]

Events & Shows

Karen Wynn'-Fonstad’s work [Atlas of Middle-earth etc.] will be exhibited for the first time ever (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window), [Longmont, Colorado]

The Parody of the Rings is a show on tour in England right now. [London, July 25 (Opens in a new window); Edinburgh, July 30 (Opens in a new window)ff, see official website (Opens in a new window)]

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 (Opens in a new window).

Knoxville Children’s Theatre (Tennessee) is putting on The Hobbit in August (Opens in a new window).

“The Lost Trees” (Opens in a new window) exhibition at the Garden Museum, London, includes ‘Tolkien’s black pine (Opens in a new window)’ [until July 20]

Birmingham and metal legend Toni Iommi of Black Sabbath likened Sabbath’s original drummer Bill Ward to Gollum (Opens in a new window) in last week’s farewell show ‘Back to the Beginning’ [Blabbermouth.net (Opens in a new window)]

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 (Opens in a new window) [FB] and the Tolkien Guide Calendar (Opens in a new window).

Scholarship & Fandom

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

The creative uses of Irish literature in works by J.R.R. Tolkien (Opens in a new window)(PhD thesis) by Kristine Swank is available for download with the University of Glasgow.

Tolkien et la mémoire de l'Antiquité (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window), Weapons (Opens in a new window), Stationary, Music CDs (Opens in a new window), and Non-Music CDs (Opens in a new window).

Tom Hillman has The Tides Of Time, The Tides Of Fate, And The Power Of Song (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window).

Vlatka Rolanda, Anje Batina i Dragana Tasića (Opens in a new window) have published a book in Hungary to promote interest in GIS (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window).

doubtfulsea has Bard (Opens in a new window).

Blackwell’s showing off its Tolkien chops on Instagram (Opens in a new window):

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 (Opens in a new window) for this year, including LotR. [tumblr]

Merchandise & Franchise

Donato Giancola has a progress development on his Argonath (Opens in a new window). [Muddy Colors]

Ed Sheeran celebrated “I see fire” reaching one billion streams (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) [Collider]

The ENNIE Awards (Opens in a new window) (RPG) are happening, you can vote (Opens in a new window) for the Free League LotR RPG!

Planning refused for major tourism and leisure park at long-derelict South Kerry hotel (Opens in a new window) [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 (Opens in a new window).

The Other End Comics (Opens in a new window) have won this week’s Middle-earth Award 😁

The New York Times has done “The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century”, both audience (Opens in a new window) and professional critics (Opens in a new window). [possible paywall]

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 Tolkien Gleanings #310 (Opens in a new window). ↩