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An insight into putting together the PhD appendices – pictures galore

At the moment, I’m neck-deep into revisions of my PhD thesis text, and into putting together the appendices. Of course a PhD on J.R.R. and Christopher Tolkien must have appendices. Specifically, the iconographic part of the appendices (the “artists’ interviews” part was completed in Spring, see my Tipeee page for weekly updates!).

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Painting ‘the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar’: Aesthetic Beauty in The Silmarillion and its Illustrations — Online Midsummer Seminar, 2025

In August 2025 I gave a talk at the Mythopoeic Society’s OMS (which I’d attended for a few years without daring to apply). This presentation is, as is often the case with my talks, largely taken from a chapter of my PhD. This time, I explore the concept of visual beauty in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium, through the rather telling example of Lúthien, and what that means for artists commissioned to illustrate her in official editions sanctionned by the Tolkien Estate, namely Alan Lee and Ted Nasmith. Depiste focusing on these two well-known names, I made it a point to include a lot of stunning fan-art in my powerpoint presentation, and to add a coda at the end about diversity.

The recording is available to watch here (click). Please ignore the technical glitch at the start.

A Princess illustrates The Lord of the Rings: Ingahild Grathmer, Eric Fraser and the Folio Society — Oxonmoot 2022

In 2022, I presented this paper at the Tolkien’s Society convention Oxonmoot. It was meant as a follow-up to the 2019 talk I gave at Tolkien2019 in Birmingham, which was published in 2025 thanks to the long-term efforts of Will Sherwood and is available here. My 2022 paper was neither published nor recorded, but it is a significant improvement from the 2019 talk which included a lot more questions than answers, and so I decided to publish my research here.

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Avis — L’Encyclopédie de la Terre du Milieu : Númenor et le Deuxième Âge

Ce beau volume d’1,85 kg rassemble le travail de six auteurices et trois artistes qui font vivre la Terre du Milieu au Deuxième Âge. Cette période de presque 3500 ans est moins bien détaillée par J.R.R. Tolkien que les Premiers et Troisièmes Âges, mais englobe l’histoire fascinante de Númenor, qui est au cœur de la série Les Anneaux de Pouvoir.

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John Howe in Tolkien’s footsteps: exhibition review

From June 25 2023 to January 28 2024, the Hélène and Edouard Leclerc Foundation for Culture is hosting the exhibition “Following the trails of Tolkien and the medieval imaginary world. Paintings and drawings of John Howe”. I visited it in November, over two days, and here are my thoughts on it.

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John Howe sur les traces de Tolkien : compte-rendu d’exposition

Du 25 juin 2023 au 28 janvier 2024 se tient au Fonds Hélène et Edouard Leclerc pour la Culture l’exposition « Sur les traces de Tolkien et de l’imaginaire médiéval. Peintures et dessins de John Howe ». J’ai pu la visiter en novembre, sur deux jours, et je vous en propose un avis ici.

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A Long-Expected Musical

On October 11th, I took a last-minute trip to see the Lord of the Rings musical at the Watermill Theatre, in the English countryside. Here is not a review, because I was too overwhelmed with the art, and the beauty, and the emotion of it to turn on my critical mind. But I hope to give you a glimpse of what it was like. All the pictures are by Pamela Raith and were published on the Watermill Theatre’s social media channels.

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Journey to the Lands of The One – part 2

Travel diary of the Sur les Terres de l’Unique convention in Plouha, Brittany.

Part 1 is available here.

Sunday started with a blissful sleep in, after which Ted, his partner and I were at our station a little before 10 in the conference room for the signing session.

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