Tolkien Gleanings #181.

* New from Walking Tree, the book The Romantic Spirit in the Works of J.R.R. Tolkien. An edited collection which includes among others “J.R.R. Tolkien, Walter Scott, and Scott-ish Romanticism”, and “‘The Backs of Trees’: Tolkien, the British Theological Romantics, & the Fantastic Imagination”. Available for pre-order from Amazon UK and possibly other Amazon sites, with a publication date of 31st March 2024.

* Also new from Walking Tree, the single author book Germanic Heroes, Courage, and Fate: Northern Narratives of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium. With a foreword by Tom Shippey and an introduction by Thomas Honegger. Available now.

* Free scans of books by R.R. Marett, Tolkien’s personal tutor at Exeter College from 1913. Most are collections of his famously lucid and focused lectures, and many can be downloaded.

  – The Birth of Humility (1910, inaugural lecture) (To ‘read online’ only)

  – The Threshold of Religion (1914, enlarged and revised second edition)

  – Psychology and Folk-lore (1920)

  – The Diffusion of Culture (1927, printed lecture) (To ‘read online’ only)

  – The Raw Material of Religion (1929, printed lecture, not online)

  – Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion (1930–1932)

  – Sacraments of Simple Folk (1933) (To ‘borrow’ only)

  – Head Heart And Hands In Human Evolution (1935)

* And finally, the latest issue of the open-access journal on fan-works, Transformative Works and Cultures. The topic of the issue is ‘Fandoms and platforms’, meaning online platforms rather than role-playing flets. Includes “The Fading of the Elves: techno-volunteerism and the disappearance of Tolkien fan fiction archives”.