https://accessnepa.com/early-access/barbara-remington-death/

Artist Barbara Remington, who lived in Thompson, Susquehanna County, died Thursday.

A well-traveled and prolific artist, Remington illustrated the original American paperback editions of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, which Ballantine Books published in the mid-1960s.

She lived in Northeast Pennsylvania for the last 35 years and shared her work with the region through exhibits at Scranton’s AFA Gallery, Marywood University and Springville Schoolhouse Art Studios, as reported in a story in 2018.

Remington celebrated her 90th birthday on June 23.

A project of the University of St Andrews, in collaboration with the Rimini Meeting, 60 volunteers, and a committee of 20 Tolkien experts, including Tom Shippey, Timoty Radcliffe, Thomas Honegger, Martin Simonson, Guglielmo Spirito, Alison Milbank, Stuart Lee and many others. We are expecting others to join us.

This will be the most important Tolkien event ever thrown in Italy and I feel honored to be in the scientific committee.

http://thetreeoftales.com/?lang=en

French news is reporting that Christopher Tolkien passed away Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I will update this post with additional official news reporting as is becomes available.

Christopher has always been an amazing son, scholar, and estate executor. As a child he was an avid listener and a sharp sounding board for his father's writings. As an adult he was a robust scholar in his own right, but chose to dedicate his life to his father's legacy upon his passing in 1973. The insight, effort, and scholarship he brought to the Tolkien Estate allowed the world to see the inner workings of one of the greatest authors of our time - perhaps the best documented literary estate in the English language.

Christopher, your kindness, thoughtfulness, and support for your fans and fans of your father will always be remembered. I wish peace and comfort to your family and friends in this difficult time, and hope they all know how much you are loved, worldwide.

"You were so special a gift to me, in a time of sorrow and mental suffering, and your love, opening at once almost as soon as you were born, foretold to me, as it were in spoken words, that I am consoled ever by the certainty that there is no end to this. Probable under God that we shall meet again, 'in hale and in unity', before very long, dearest, and certain that we have some special bond to last beyond this life..."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter to Christopher Tolkien, 30th April 1944.

"It is hard indeed to believe that one of so great wisdom, and of power – for many wonderful things he did among us – could perish, and so much lore be taken from the world."--JRR Tolkien, The Two Towers.

Namárië.

I happened across a book review of The Fellowship of the Ring written by L. Sprague de Camp in the August 1955 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly. I have not seen this review noted before so thought it worth mentioning here. De Camp says it “is a big, leisurely, colorful, poetical, sorrowful, adventuresome romance”. He looks forward to the next two volumes “with the most avid eagerness”.

Humorously he describes hobbits as “a species of pudgy, hairy-footed dwarf that may be described as a cross between an English white-collar worker and a rabbit.”

One final reminder/announcement as we are coming close to the end of the year...

"If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to darkness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred..." To mark the passing of the torch from Daniel Smith to new calendar editor Jeremy Edmonds, Beyond Bree is turning to the First and Second Ages of Middle-earth as interpreted by artists from around the globe - Emily Austen, Jenny Dolfen, Anke Eissmann, Donato Giancola, Jian Guo, Sylvia Hunnewell, Jay Johnstone, Nancy Martsch, and Gordon Palmer.

The color and black and white calendar is 11 x 8 1⁄2 inches, opening to 11 x 17 inches. It has both Middle-earth and real world holidays.

Pricing: $20 plus shipping - USA $2.00, the rest of the world $5.00. See the attached flyer for additional payment information.