Tolkien Gleanings #271

* The Tolkien Society has announced Carl Phelpstead as the Annual Guest Speaker. A scholar best known for his book Tolkien and Wales (2011).

* Lingwe has posted the new article “J.A.W. Bennett on Tolkien”… “Jack Arthur Walter Bennett (1911–1981) was a younger and lesser-known member of the Inklings.”

* The OST Continuing Education podcast has a new interview with Dr. Austin Freeman on Tolkien’s imaginative apologetics. Freely available on YouTube.

* Omnes magazine briefly notes that Holly Ordway’s spiritual biography of Tolkien is now available in Spanish translation.

* The Oxford Mail local newspaper reports that the city council’s planning committee has finally approved the renovation and re-use of The Eagle and Child in Oxford. The pub will re-open as a pub after the extensive work, but will add a new restaurant and a new “study space” linked with a new science campus in Oxford.

* An Inklings Fellowship gathering in July 2025, An Inklings Week in Oxford, to be themed ‘Of Other Worlds: 75 Years of Narnia’.

* In the last Gleanings I mentioned the apparent lack of a repository of sewing-patterns for Middle-earth costumes. I’ve now found the Material Middle-Earth website. While I don’t immediately see a pattern repository there, it’s current and obviously the central hub for all things material. Their postings and blogroll may lead those interested in such things as printable pattern-sheets.

* And finally, in this week’s Country Life magazine, an unintended but magnificent evocation of The Shire. In the form of Samuel Palmer’s painting “The Weald” (c. 1833-34).