The One hundred and thirty-fourth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

April 26, 1923. Tolkien's review "Holy Maidenhood (Opens in a new window)" is published in The Times Literary Supplement.
April 28, 1972. Tolkien writes a letter to Mrs Robertson (Opens in a new window), explaining his delay in answering with “settling into rooms in College.”
April 30, 1944. Tolkien writes writes Letter 64 (Opens in a new window) on “war as waste, missing Christopher & progress on The Lord of the Rings (Opens in a new window).”
May 2, 1970. Tolkien is awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Nottingham (Opens in a new window).

• Third Age, 2941. Thirteen dwarves (Opens in a new window) and Gandalf (Opens in a new window) arrive at Bag End (Opens in a new window). Bilbo (Opens in a new window) learns of the Lonely Mountain (Opens in a new window) and Smaug (Opens in a new window) and agrees to accompany the dwarves (Opens in a new window) and Gandalf (Opens in a new window) on their adventure. [April 27]

Events & Shows

Artist Jemima Catlin has noted that several of her Hobbit edition illustrations (Opens in a new window)are on display with the Magic in Middle-earth exhibition (Opens in a new window) at the Shire Hall Museum. [Facebook; Shire Hall, Dorset]

Registration is open for the Austrian Tolkien Society’s Mereth Ethuil (Opens in a new window). [Report of 2024’s ME (Opens in a new window)]

The AIST - Associazione Italiana Studi Tolkieniani - will have a conference on April 27th in Dozza on adaptations (Opens in a new window). [Facebook]

Brno in the Czech Republic is home to a very special picknick this weekend (Opens in a new window). [Facebook]

Argentinian Tolkien group Eärlindë is hosting its Mereth on May 18th in Buenos Aires (Opens in a new window). [Instagram]

The Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang (Opens in a new window) is happening right now.

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

Miriam Ellis has Our Francis: The Pope Who Loved Creation and Quoted Tolkien (Opens in a new window) as well as Bilbo's Memory: The Not-So-Secret-Fire-Works of Gandalf (Opens in a new window).

Stephen C. Winter has “A Waiting Silence Broods Above the Nameless Land.” All is Prepared for Frodo to Enter Mordor (Opens in a new window).

Thoughts on Tolkien has The Redemption of the Dead (Opens in a new window).

Robin Reid has A ‘Tolkien’ of One’s Own: Women Making Their Own ‘Tolkiens’ (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

Merchandise & Franchise

Free League Publishing (Opens in a new window) have announced the “Elven Expansion for The One Ring™ RPG and 5E (Opens in a new window).”

Inter alia

Why There Hasn’t Been a Star Wars Movie in 6 Years—And What Comes Next (Opens in a new window)[Time]

International law firm Bird & Bird (Opens in a new window) has mentioned Tolkien’s ents (Opens in a new window) with a post on the EUDR (Opens in a new window) - EU Regulation on Deforestation-free products.

The Informed Alarmist has Palantir: How Tech Bros Misread Tolkien (Opens in a new window). [Substack]; for more info on neo-fascists like Thiel see Dark Enlightenment (Opens in a new window) [Wikipedia]

LibraryThing’s State of Things for April (Opens in a new window) is out, celebrating - among other things - nine years of TinyCat. That is your free opportunity (Opens in a new window) to have your “own library” online - like I do (Opens in a new window).

Write your name in our Earth (Opens in a new window), thanks to Landsat / NASA¹.

‘Star Wars’ Series From Carlton Cuse, Nick Cuse in the Works (Opens in a new window)[Hollywood Reporter]; also a new video game is in the making (Opens in a new window). [Wertzone]

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

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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 (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.

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