Tolkien Gleanings #305
* The YouTube channel for Uppsala Books has scheduled a number of Tom Shippey talks. Talking of Tom Shippey, I see a French translation ‘pocket-book’ edition of his J.R.R. Tolkien, auteur du siecle (‘Author of the Century’). This is due to ship on 20th August 2025, from Bragelonne.
* Sotheby’s Books & Manuscripts division has newly published a short “Guide to Identifying J.R.R. Tolkien First Editions”.
* In the latest Imaginative Conservative, Bradley J. Birzer on “Ascending to the Seven Virtues of J.R.R. Tolkien”. Not a reprint article, as they often are, but the text of a speech given at a 2025 graduation event. Freely available online.
* In the latest Lutheran Quarterly, a journal which appears to have newly switched to open-access, a review of The Fantasy of J.R.R. Tolkien: Mythopoeia and the Recovery of Creation. Freely available online.
* A Masters dissertation for The University of British Columbia, “Death as a gift: a heroic celebration of life in The Lord of the Rings” (2024), which examines… “perceptions of death among Men” and “argues that Men’s contrasting attitudes toward Iluvatar’s Gift — acceptance exemplified by Theoden’s heroic death and rejection by Denethor’s despair — result in divergent outcomes of glory versus disgrace.” Freely available online.
* A new Masters dissertation for Liberty University, “Apologetics and Storytelling in The Lord of the Rings” (2025). Freely available online.
* Dimitra Fimi’s blog has posted her “Reflections on Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales”. This being the text of her… “talk at Oxonmoot 2021 … this is the first time I am sharing the full written text”.
* New on Archive.org, the German shareware collection CD Pegasus 4.0 (1993). Those were the days when you could fit hundreds of early computer games on one CD. Includes…
Lotrdemo.zip | 23-12-93 | A shareware demo of the adventure game based on Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Good graphics.
* New on the Renderosity store, and intended for use with the free DAZ Studio desktop software, the royalty-free 3D poseable figure Father Mushroom. I’d say this could provide a good starting-point for crafting a Tom Bombadil figure in 3D, given a bit of tweaking and new accessories. Though the figure separately has a pack of… “high boots, wide trousers, shirt and belt” included.
* A current call-for-papers…
“Are you working on any aspect of folklore and want to publish your research as a short book of 20-30k words? The new Cambridge University Press series ‘Elements in Folklore’ is now seeking proposals. [… Should be] briefer than a monograph but longer than an article, Elements will offer scholars the opportunity to explore subjects that might otherwise be neglected. […] Please email me if you’d like a proposal form.”
* And finally… the long-running British Fairies blog has a new article on “The Spirits of the Forest — faeries, dryads & sprites”.