The One hundred and fortieth Roving Ranger

Life and Works

June 7, 1957. Marquette University (Opens in a new window) acquires many of Tolkien's manuscripts for £1,500 (worth £50,714.96 in 202 (Opens in a new window)5).
June 8, 1961. Tolkien writes Letter 230 (Opens in a new window), on Aragorn and languages.
June 9, 1963. Tolkien's paper "English and Welsh (Opens in a new window)" is published in Angles and Britons: O'Donnell Lectures (Opens in a new window), a collection of lectures from the University of Wales.
June 10, 1915. Exams start at Oxford University (Opens in a new window). Because of the war (Opens in a new window), 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 (Opens in a new window), edited by E.V. Gordon (Opens in a new window) 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 (Opens in a new window) and its local branch at the Lower Rhine (Opens in a new window), are celebrating their 15th anniversary and possibly more then 14,000 visitors (a new record.) [Jun 12-15; off. website (Opens in a new window) | FB in English (Opens in a new window)].
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 (Opens in a new window); Jun 28]

Tolkien exhibit at Ball State University. [until end of July (Opens in a new window); 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 (Opens in a new window) [Jun 13]

Tulsa Youth Opera to Present ‘The Hobbit’ [Jun 7-8] (Opens in a new window)

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

Andrew Higgins has Book Review - The Map of Wilderland by Amber Lehning (Opens in a new window). [Substack]

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

2025 Mythopoeic Awards Finalists Announced (Opens in a new window).

Arda Philology 8 can now be ordered online (Opens in a new window).

Lord of the Rings Online devs weigh in on the fate of the MMO’s old 32-bit servers (Opens in a new window) [Massively OP]

doubtfulsea has Babeling (Opens in a new window).

Thoughts on Tolkien has Beowulf and the Bard (Opens in a new window).

Watch the Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee with an exclusive deal for The Lord of the Rings fans (Opens in a new window) [TORn; use promo code ONERING for the digital download; (Opens in a new window)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 (Opens in a new window).

Merchandise & Franchise

The Lord of the Rings – A Musical Tale (Opens in a new window) [Australian Book Review]

Matt Leacock's new Lord of the Rings board game is like Pandemic but even better (Opens in a new window) [Wargamer]

Bardic Brewing & Cider in Spokane has TOLKIEN on tap. [off. website (Opens in a new window) | IG (Opens in a new window)]

Inter alia

How the Right Abuses Tolkien (Opens in a new window) [Current Affairs]

Guilermo del Toro’s Frankenstein (Opens in a new window) has a trailer¹. [Youtube]

Inside Hollywood’s Succession Wars (Opens in a new window) [Hollywood Reporter]

Planets and Plastic: A History of the SFWA Trophies and Awards (Opens in a new window).

xkcd wins again.

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 PhantaNews (Opens in a new window). ↩