Tolkien Gleanings #193.
* An update on the forthcoming Tolkien’s Collected Poems, from the editors. The book will be in three volumes, not one volume as previously mooted, and these will be slip-cased in a box. 1,620 pages in total. The mid-September dead-tree release date is currently holding. There will be an index (my guess: presumably an index to the names, places, and themes in the poetry, as well as all the other material). I can add that Amazon UK also now lists a £45 Kindle ebook version, set for the same release date.
* Peter Jackson’s “remastered” and “extended” original LoTR movie trilogy is to be shown in cinemas for the first time. Sadly it’s not a general-release run for the “4K Ultra HD” extended versions, despite cinemas desperately needing box-office after suffering strings of flops. It’s just a very limited showing in the USA. Tickets on sale now, for June 2024.
* Released early next week, the short book J.R.R. Tolkien: A Catholic Life. From an American writer who apparently worked on the topic for a number of years, independently of and unconnected with Holly Ordway. It will be interesting to see if he can fill any of the ‘gaps’ in Ordway’s work (e.g. early influence of the poet Francis Thompson, late religious life while in Stoke-on-Trent with his son), although it seems it’s not a table-trembler — Amazon UK has it at just 126 pages. The cover is artfully blended, but one hopes the licencing fees have been paid… it contains a collage of movie-actor stills above a central Tolkien picture rights-managed by Getty Images.
* A new undergraduate dissertation, “Where the Blue Flowers Grow: Sehnsucht and Eucatastrophe in Christian Fantasy Literature” (2024). Freely available online.
* New on YouTube, The Catholic Current podcast on “Hope for the Hopeless/The Philosophy of Tolkien”, talking with the author of the book The Philosophy of Tolkien (2005).
* John Garth is set to give a talk in Leeds tomorrow. Last time I looked, £15 tickets were still available…
* Late news of an American lecture which was set for 26th April, “Ariosto, Tolkien, and the Italian Way to Fantasy”. The event has now been and gone, but one can hope a recording will show up on YouTube at some point. I believe Tolkien is on record as never having read or encountered Ariosto.
* The British Fairies blog has a new post on “Faery cups — thefts & punishments”.
* And finally, a new PhD thesis on Mythical Middle England: A Quest to Capture Cinematic Imagery in Suburban Worcestershire which among other things… “provides a theoretical toolkit for academics and artists to better understand how genius loci can be represented” on the screen. Or will provide, since it’s under embargo at the Kent University repository until March 2027.
The Spyders of Burslem 