Tolkien Gleanings #464
* The new documentary The Stories That Come to Us: A Conversation with Verlyn Flieger has now been released at the Signum Store at $12.99.
“We invite you to step into the heart of Tolkien scholarship with one of the great trailblazers of Tolkien Studies, Dr. Verlyn Flieger! Led by Jonatan Lyssens and Maggie Parke, these interviews are accessible, comfortable and from her own home – it’s like sitting down for a chat over a cup of tea with one of the legends in the field.”
* Open Letters Review reviews The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, illustrated by Tove Jansson. Incidentally the Tove Jansson exhibition, at London’s Quentin Blake Centre, will open 21st November and run until 9th May 2027.
* The Oxford Mail local newspaper notes “Rare Hobbit first editions listed on eBay for £800,000″.
* Word on Fire on “The Glory of the Unfinished: Reading Tolkien’s “Leaf By Niggle” on All Souls Day”.
* The Westminster Podcast talks to Yannick Imbert on Tolkien and the Christian Imagination…
“Drawing on his doctoral work on Tolkien, Imbert explores how stories can challenge our assumptions, awaken our sense of wonder, and help us imagine hope in a world marked by suffering and death.”
* The latest SFRA Review reviews J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit: Realizing History Through Fantasy.
* Cultus Dispatches at the SWG investigates and tabulates Marquette’s new Tolkien fanzine dataset…
“Last month, Marquette University released the Tolkien Fanzine Dataset, 1967-2017, a spreadsheet of 4,113 entries from Tolkien fanzines [which] is the most significant effort to bring those zines to light that I’ve yet seen, and what can be gleaned from it reveals what pre-internet Tolkien fandom looked like.”
* A short online course from Signum University, The Inklings and King Arthur. Starts 4th January 2027, booking now.
* A new site section at the Digital Tolkien Project, Tolkien Annotations.
* Adam Roberts translates the Lord of the Rings Ring Rhyme into Latin.
* And finally, popping up on eBay, a rare interior view of Tolkien’s school in Birmingham. Here newly restored and colorised.
