The One hundred and forty-eighth Roving Ranger

-:- Strange as news from Bree -:-

Life and Works

August 1, 2008. Pauline Baynes (Opens in a new window), Tolkien's favourite artist, dies.
August 2, 1964. Tolkien writes Letter 258 (Opens in a new window), on the real-life usage of Tolkien's words.
August 2, 1966. Tolkien is interviewed by William Cater (Opens in a new window) (see quote below).
August 3, 1991. Priscilla Tolkien (Opens in a new window) speaks on "J.R.R. Tolkien: Scholar and Storyteller" at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library in Washington, D.C.
August 4, 1953. Tolkien (Opens in a new window) is angry over the fact that an editor at Allen and Unwin (Opens in a new window) has corrected dwarves to dwarfs, elvish to elfish, further to farther, and worst of all, elven to elfin.
August 5, 2002. The History of Middle-earth Index (Opens in a new window) is published.
August 7, 1954. Tolkien writes Letter 148 (Opens in a new window), on nasturtians, a busy year.

The English-speaking world is divided into those who have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and those who are going to read them.¹

Events & Shows

Aug 4-8, 2005. The first ever Omentielva (Opens in a new window) takes place in Stockholm, the International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Invented Languages.

When visiting Oxford it has been quite strange not to have an official tourist information centre. The Clarion (Opens in a new window) reports that the city has now ‘opened’ eleven so-called ‘tourism hubs’ (Opens in a new window) to alleviate some of the issues.

The Pembroke College-based Tolkien Lecture is now available as a podcast (Opens in a new window). [Spotify]

If you are in the Santa Cruz (CA) area you might like to join the Hobbit Hikers (Opens in a new window). [Meetup]

Auditions for the 2025-2026 ACT! for Youth season will be for The Hobbit at Wilson Art (Opens in a new window); this weekend (NC).

Tolkien Society Seminar 2025 – Arda’s Entangled Bodies and Environments (Opens in a new window) [Oct 18-19]²

As this is the first home game of the season the only Tolkien-inspired football fan club worldwide, Jenas Tirith (Opens in a new window), will be out in full force, with Tolkien scholar guest Hamish Williams (Opens in a new window) joining us at stadium block G = Gandalf. [See Instagram for photos (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

Thoughts on Tolkien has Tolkien’s Greek Horsemen (Opens in a new window).

Oronzo Cilli has The Wilton Diptych: a gift from Tolkien to the Convent of Santa Colette in Assisi (Opens in a new window).

doubtfulsea has Pippin (Opens in a new window).

Society calls for Tolkien to feature on a new bank note (Opens in a new window)[Tolkien Society; see also BBC (Opens in a new window)]

The archivist in charge of 11,000 pages of original Lord of the Rings drafts at Marquette University (Opens in a new window) [Milwaukee Tonight]

Merchandise & Franchise

Rebecca Romney has an uncorrected proof of Tree & Leaf, owned by W.H. Auden (Opens in a new window) [Youtube]

Office Dog Game has Announcing The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers™ Trick Taking Game (Opens in a new window).

A Return to Moria expansion is coming at the end of this year (Opens in a new window). [GameSpot]

The Rings Of Power Season 3 Enters Production As Amazon Teases Sauron’s Return (Opens in a new window) [Empire]

The Free League LotR RPG starter set has just been published (Opens in a new window).

It's been a rough decade for Lord of The Rings games (Opens in a new window) [Polygon]

Inside the struggle to create a cozy Lord of the Rings game (Opens in a new window) [Verge]

The first reviews are coming in: Tales of the Shire. IGN (Opens in a new window) | Polygon (Opens in a new window) | PC Gamer (Opens in a new window) (Youtube) | Guardian (Opens in a new window) | Tea with Tolkien (Opens in a new window) (Bluesky) | TolkienGuide, by Urulókë (Opens in a new window)

• dreadfully boring and extremely buggy [IGN]

• It's a great premise, but these Hobbitses fail to stick the landing [Polygon]

• too cosy for comfort [Guardian]

• A game that could’ve been life-changing ended up pretty “meh”… 6/10 [Tea with Tolkien]

Inter alia

There’s A Huge Petition To Rename Birmingham Airport After Ozzy Osbourne – And BHX Has Responded With Its Plans To Honour The Black Sabbath Legend (Opens in a new window) [Secret Birmingham; JRRT named]

‘South Park’ Season 27 Premiere Draws Nearly 6M Viewers, Marks Franchise’s Biggest Cable Share Since 1999 (Opens in a new window) [Cartoon Brew]

Given the fact that I am on a ST: VOY rewatch right now this looks fun to me: Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (Opens in a new window) | First Look Teaser [Youtube]

Brian Sibley has Tom Lehrer (Opens in a new window).

Simon Tolkien Shares His Writing Secrets! (Opens in a new window) [Youtube]

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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. William Cater (Opens in a new window), The Sunday Times (UK), 2 January 1972. ↩

2. h/t Ian M (Opens in a new window) [Bluesky] ↩