Tolkien Gleanings #452

* Tom Shippey’s Uppsala Books imprint has now published the artbook A Shire Walking-Party by Miriam Ellis.

“You’re invited on a walking-party through hobbit homelands, history, and culture in this lavishly-illustrated art book. Ramble at leisure through the green countryside. Visit major landmarks and little-known byways. Take your ease at rustic inns and walk right into welcoming hobbit holes. Befriend the locals and greet elves, dwarves, and others passing through the region, all faithfully based on Tolkien’s authoritative lore. More than 60 beautiful paintings by award-winning fine artist Miriam Ellis.”

* The Summer 2026 issue of Forgotten Ground Regained: A Quarterly Journal of Alliterative Verse is a Tolkien tribute issue. Freely available now.

* In this week’s Spectator magazine, “Tolkien knew the truth about power”. A long essay by the author of the new biography The King Under the Mountain: In Search of J.R.R. Tolkien, due to be published next month.

* Tolkien Oddments on Tolkien, “The Golden Key,” and “On Fairy-stories”, answering the question “which edition of George MacDonald’s story ‘The Golden Key’ was Tolkien referring to in his note in MS B of ‘On Fairy-stories’?”.

* Elfenomeno goes to Oxford in September. Matej Cadil will also be there.

* On YouTube, Paolo Nardi on “Tolkien and the Narrative Framework in the 1930s”. He explores the ‘chain of narrators’ form that Tolkien adopted early, and examines the tensions that arose in this between English history and Elvish history.

* Also on YouTube, Malcolm Guite considers “Concerning Hobbits: the prologue of The Lord of the Rings”.

* Dark Worlds Quarterly surveys the various uses in written fantasy of the combination of “Tunnels & Trolls”.

* And finally, a look at the Tolkien exhibition currently on show at the Cerdon Copperworks in France. Until 15th November 2026. A short video taster is at YouTube.