Tolkien Gleanings #415
* The latest rolling issue of The Journal of Tolkien Studies has added Kristine Larsen’s paper from the recent Kalamazoo Medieval Congress, “Voyaging into the Void in Tolkien’s Early Cosmologies”. Freely available online.
* Tomorrow sees a French online conference about heraldry in Middle-earth, Tolkien heraldiste. Place et histoire des armoiries dans les oeuvres de J.R.R. Tolkien (‘Tolkien, heraldist: the place and history of coats-of-arms in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien’).
* Kalimac unearths a vivid 1974 observation by science-fiction author James Tiptree on Tolkien and H.G. Wells, re: their experiences of trauma during their young manhood. The unstated historical context for the Tiptree quote is that the very ill Wells nearly died, while living in Stoke-on-Trent in 1888. See the short memoir by Wells “How I Died”, and also my book H.G. Wells in the Potteries: North Staffordshire and the Genesis of The Time Machine (2017).
* Fellowship & Fairydust has a long interview with the Tolkien/Inklings scholar David Bratman. Freely available online.
* Modern Reformation on “A Veil Before the Eyes of the Enemy: On Tolkien, Foolishness, and the Ordinary Means of Grace”. Freely available online.
* Saint Tolkien on “Tolkien and the Virtue of Pity”. Freely available online.
* A new Polish ebook available now, Poznaj Tolkiena w Poznaniu IV. Containing the proceedings of the nation’s annual conference / Reading Day event.
No contents listing, but the papers at the conference included (titles here translated to English)…
“Sources and symbolism of the appearance of groups.” (clothing, weapons, etc)
“I have over a hundred editions of The Hobbit”.
“A zoologist in Middle-earth”.
“Tolkienalia in Fantastyka and Nowa Fantastyka magazine”.
“Tolkien’s work: more pagan than Christian?”
“(Not only) the King’s hands have the power to heal” (healing motifs in LoTR).
“Goths, Huns and Anglo-Saxons: Tolkien’s historical inspirations for Rohan”. (panel)
“History of Polish translations of Tolkien’s works, vol. 4”. (panel)
* The Mortimer History Society has two x £1,000 Research Bursaries for PhD and M.A. students… “whose research includes any aspect of the medieval Welsh Marches or the Mortimers”. Deadline: 30th June 2026.
* Transcripts of the 1981 radio adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, newly available on Archive.org
* And finally, Duchess Road, Edgbaston. An eBay scan and here newly colorised. At a guess, circa 1905-1910?
