Tolkien Gleanings #348
* New in the latest rolling issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research, Kristine Larsen has “J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Medawar”. Freely available online. In May 1941…
“… a military plane crashed near Tolkien’s home. This article ties together his family’s experience, the impact it had on the Oxford community, and a Nobel Prize, whose winner Tolkien later shared air raid warden duty with.”
* The forthcoming Winter 2025 edition of the British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal is to be a “War in Fantasy” special issue. The deadline for accepted articles is 31st October, so I’d imagine that the journal might be released nearer to Christmas?
* The substantial exhibition Icons of the Fantastic: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature from the Korshak Collection runs until 9th December 2025 in Delaware, USA. Accompanied by a 200-image catalogue. Includes original… “rare masterpieces that defined the visual language of beloved classics such as […] Lord of the Rings”.
* The latest Summer 2025 issue of Gramarye is now available in print from the University of Chichester. Among other articles in the journal, “Nymphs and their Ways: Mr Tumnus’s Bookshelf”…
“The article explores the significance of the books on Mr. Tumnus’s shelf in C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, highlighting how they contribute to the worldbuilding of Narnia. The titles, such as ‘Nymphs and Their Ways’ and ‘Men, Monks and Gamekeepers: A Study in Popular Legend’…”
The issue also reviews, among others, The Exeter Companion to Fairies, Nereids, Trolls and Other Social Supernatural Beings.
* The latest Spiked! magazine considers the claims for “C.S. Lewis: a hard-right icon?”. Freely available online.
* Now officially free on Archive.org, the new biography I Dream With Open Eyes: The Life of David Lindsay (2025). Also available for purchase in hardback.
“Lewis’s friend J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) also read [Lindsay’s] Arcturus [novel] “with avidity”, but its most evident impact on his fiction is in an unfinished work titled “Leaves from The Notion Club Papers”, and takes the form of a criticism of Lindsay’s novel.”
* Next year’s Oxford Medieval Graduate Conference 2026 will be devoted to the theme of “Sounds & Silence”.
* And finally, popular flee-the-UK destination Dubai now has a special museum and cafe to make expats feel at home. The Legendarium Fantastic Museum Dubai. The slick website alone is worth a visit.