Tolkien Gleanings #453

* A new issue of the Journal of Tolkien Research is now underway. Freely available online. Includes, among others…

   – “Tolkien’s Philological Imagination – On Aelfwine’s Spelling, the AB Language and the Inner Consistency of Philological Reality”.
   – A book review of Tolkien’s Medievalism in Ruins: The Function of Relics and Ruins in Middle-earth (2025).

* The Worlds of Christopher Tolkien is a new scholarly/biographical book due in November 2026. Includes, among other chapters…

   – “Christopher Tolkien and the Maps of Middle-earth: Between Fidelity and Reinvention”
   – “Christopher Tolkien and the Elvish Languages: Five Decades of Work”

TolkienGuide has the full contents-list for the book.

* Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal has issued Supplement 1, effectively a book. Age of Discovery: Essays from the Inaugural Undiscovered C.S. Lewis Conference (2026). The lead chapter is Holly Ordway asking “What Did Tolkien Really Think about Narnia?”. Freely available online.

* Tolkien Annotations, a new section at the Digital Tolkien Project.

* In Portuguese, the Masters dissertation O espaco urbano na obra de J.R.R. Tolkien. Analise da ideia de cidade em Minas Tirith (2025) (‘Urban space in the work of J.R.R. Tolkien: An analysis of the idea of ​​the city of Minas Tirith’). Freely available online, with an English abstract.

* An Oxonmoot 2026 report, “Elfenomeno in Oxford”. On walking… “I’m not used to walking so much, and I wasn’t wearing appropriate footwear”, which resulted in painful limping thereafter. I’d suggest: two pairs of hiking socks with anti-blister inners, proper moulded and pressure-point padded innersoles, good moleskin plasters on vulnerable toes and heels. With boots one side larger to accommodate all that, and boots well worn-in.

* A report with excellent photos, from the Brandywine Festival.

* Birmingham Oratory tickets are available, for the annual Birmingham heritage open days.

* Popping up on eBay, The Fox & Hounds pub at Great Haywood in Staffordshire. I can’t find any Tolkien connection, but it was a relatively small village and someone may know of one.

* Novelist Lazlo Ferran considers The Ridgeway (England’s oldest trackway) as a possible Tolkien inspiration. Part One and Part Two.

* In Italian, L’Indiscreeto magazine has the new long article “Tolkien contro Tolkien”, considering how “Tolkien has won” but also simultaneously lost to the marketing machines and pap-merchants. Freely available online, in Italian.

* Miriam Ellis is interviewed in the Stockholm Tolkien Society magazine, and she offers a free PDF for the article.

* Black Metal magazine has a new five-part article series on Tolkien and Black Metal.

* And finally, Appendix B of The Lord of the Rings, as an interactive map.