Tolkien Gleanings #185.

* The publisher Walking Tree announces the book The Songs of the Spheres: Lewis, Tolkien and the Overlapping Realms of their Imagination. An edited volume of essays, due in “mid April” 2024. The table-of-contents is here.

* Spotted during my ongoing read-through of Amon Hen back-issues (#261, page 27), a mention of Henry Wansbrough writing in The Tablet. He is quoted as noting that Tolkien had worked on… “the four chapters of Jonah and a literary revision of Habbakuk”. I knew about Jonah, but not the other. According to a reliable source the short Old Testament book of Habakkuk is about a circa 600 B.C. prophet “who stands at the watchtower awaiting God’s answer”, after the man’s frank and pointed questioning about why God permits the great distress then being inflicted on his chosen people.

* The University Bookman reviews the new Tolkien letters, in “The Mind Of Middle-earth”.

* New in open-access and in English, “The Fellowship of the Ring: A comparison of three Italian translations with the original text” (2024).

* Lovecraft and Tolkien, considered in relation to new scientific findings about ivy on the walls of buildings. In the blog article “… ivy so dense that one cannot but imagine it accursed or corpse-fed”.

* The Catholic Herald had an Easter article on “The Harrowing of Hell, according to J.R.R. Tolkien”.

* A new revised and expanded edition of Tom Shippey’s book Beowulf Translation and Commentary, shipping now.

* And finally, a public wall-plaque for Tolkien illustrator Pauline Baynes, in her home town of Farnham. Set to be unveiled on 20th October 2024.