Tolkien Gleanings #251
* The latest issue of the rolling Journal of Tolkien Research is beginning to fill up, and now comes the first peer-reviewed article, “The Land of Fairies of J.R.R. Tolkien”. Freely available online.
* The major new book The Island: W.H. Auden and the Last of Englishness focuses on the poet’s biography prior to his departure for America. With special and newly-illuminating focus on his roots in south Birmingham and his time as a teacher at nearby Malvern, as the young Auden yearned for a “lyrical nationalism” and for recognition as a national poet. Given his similar roots, interests and trajectory — and also his later direct connection with Tolkien at a critical time in the birth of LoTR — this acclaimed new book may interest Gleanings readers.
* The blog jwwrightauthor has some new “Thoughts on Moorcock’s Criticism of Tolkien and Other Fantasists”. In another blog, SteadyHQ, we’re offered another reason why Moorcock got it so wrong. Like many other pungent leftist ‘critics’ of LoTR in the first 40 or so years after publication, it now appears that “Moorcock never really read LoTR”.
* Tolkien Notes 21 (end of October 2024) from the Tolkien scholars Hammond & Scull.
* The World Fantasy Convention 2025, to be held in Brighton on the south coast of the UK, has announced its two themes. ‘Lyrical Fantasy’ and ’50 Years of British Fantasy and Horror’. The latter presumably being 1975-2025.
* Shortly to be released to online streaming on Arte.tv, the feature-length TV documentary Tolkien: The True Story of the Rings (2024)… “This documentary explores the real places in England and elsewhere that provided inspiration for Tolkien”.
* For the real thing including muddy boots, Imagining Middle-earth: A Journey Through Tolkien’s England with Michael Drout, during October 2025. Start at Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire, and end in Oxford.
* The Walking Tree Publishers website has ejected its recent cyber-gremlins. The ‘Latest News’ page now has new links to three free PDF reviews of Germanic Heroes, Courage, and one for Fate: Northern Narratives of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium and Binding them all: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on J.R.R. Tolkien and His Works.
* Tolkien’s old university college is celebrating 30 years of Exeter’s musical organ, with ‘An evening of organ music inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’. Set for 27th February 2025.
* Tolkien & Lewis’s “Eagle and Child pub in Oxford set to host public consultation”, reports This Is Oxfordshire. The consultation event has been and gone (21st November), but the article has interior and side-alley pictures, plus developer pictures of what the famous pub might look like after the roof-fixing and renovation.
* And finally, an illustration of the perils of not being on Twitter. I’ve published an interview with him, and read his biography, but until today I had no idea about Elon Musk and Tolkien.