Tolkien Gleanings #412
* A peep at Tolkien’s copy of Words and Idioms (1925), a book which opens with the chapter “English Sea-terms”. Tolkien’s pencil annotations and underlinings, presumably from the mid or late 1920s, are shown along with attempts at deciphering his handwriting. (Substack, but freely available online).
A 1928 reprint of the 1925 edition of Words and Idioms is freely available on Archive.org.
* The Imaginative Christian perceptively considers Malcolm Guite on Coleridge’s Mariner, and J.R.R. Tolkien. Freely available online.
* A new PhD thesis on Joy Beyond the World, Poignant as Grief: Fantasy as a Literature of Continuance (2026). Embargoed by the repository until June 2028. The second chapter is on Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings, discussing the…
“continued appeal of this strange, disjointed, oddly formal novel, and how understanding its endurance as a text can help illuminate the possibilities of fantasy as a genre that works to synthesize environmental grief and desire”
* Tolkien: Medieval and Modern has three new essays on… “the role of light, gems, and the passing down of objects designed to keep evil away”. The essays arise from class discussions: “Gems, Eternity, and Evil”; “Jewels, Light, and the Weight of Beauty in Tolkien”; and “Given, Not Kept”. All freely available online.
* New in the latest rolling issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, “The library of Michael H.R. Tolkien (1920-1984): dispersal, reconstruction and partial bibliography”. Freely available online. The article is on the books owned by Tolkien’s son, with no mention of any runs of journals.
* John Garth is offering two paid summer-school courses in Oxford in 2026, Tolkien: The Great War and the Beginnings of Middle-earth and Building Middle-earth: Tolkien’s Geography and the Power of Place. There are only a few places left on either, at time of writing.
* Italian TV company Rai and Lucca Comics plan a joint exhibition on Tolkien later in 2026. This will focus on Tolkien in relation to the comic-book arts, illustration and screen animation…
“an exhibition dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien, featuring works by Angelo Montanini. Leading names from the world of drawing and animation will attend the festival, including illustrators Domenico Cava and Katerina Ladon, comic artist and writer Barbara Baraldi, and writer and screenwriter Pierdomenico Baccalario.”
Set to be staged at ‘The Aurum’, a former liqueur distillery now refurbished and re-used, located in the large sea-front town of Pescara on the Adriatic. I’d imagine it’s the type of exhibition which might travel in due course.
* In Italian, a recording of a March 2026 talk on Tolkien on war as a necessity, and his criticisms of war. The talk was… “at the invitation of the newly formed Tolkien association Valmar”. Freely available online.
* A new short article from the University of Notre Dame, “Connecting with the Public Through Medieval Animals”. Likely to be of special practical use for teachers of young children, but also relevant to adult outreach. Also note the links for further reading, such as the open-access scholarly article “Foxes and Badgers in Anglo-Saxon Life and Landscape” (2015). Both items freely available online.
* And finally, a long abstract for an undergraduate final dissertation on a Russian rock-opera, “The Lay of Leithian: A Singable Translation of the Russian Musical” (2026)… “The bulk of this project is the [singable] translation itself [into English].”