JRR Tolkien

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Tolkien Estate, Amazon Win LOTR Copyright Lawsuits

Fan fiction writer claimed Amazon series infringed on copyright of his sequel

(Newser) - A Lord of the Rings fan fiction author who sued JRR Tolkien's estate and Amazon after publishing an unauthorized sequel has lost his lawsuit and those filed against him. According to District Court of California documents issued last week, Demetrious Polychron's lawsuit was thrown out after Judge Stephen...

Among Highest-Earning Dead Celebs, a Surprise Name
Among Highest-Earning
Dead Celebs, a Surprise Name
in case you missed it

Among Highest-Earning Dead Celebs, a Surprise Name

Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro comes in at No. 9 on new 'Forbes' ranking

(Newser) - Forbes is out with its annual ranking of the highest-earning dead celebrities, and those on the top 10 have plenty of name recognition. No. 1, for example, is JRR Tolkien, whose estate pulled in $500 million thanks to the sale of Middle Earth Enterprises to a video game company....

Pastry Chef: I'm 'Living My Dream' as a Hobbit in Italy

Nicolas Gentile is building a 'Shire,' with moral support from 'LOTR' actors

(Newser) - There's Netflix's My Unorthodox Life, TLC's My 600-lb Life, and now Instagram's "My Hobbit Life." That's the handle Italy's Nicolas Gentile uses on the social media platform, where he documents, well, how he lives like a Hobbit, the mythical human-like creature featured...

Tolkien Fans Go Bananas Over Unearthed Soviet Version of LOTR

They're watching 'Khraniteli,' which aired just once on TV in 1991, with fascination, amusement

(Newser) - If you're a JRR Tolkien fan who can't wait for the next project based on his work , take a trip back in time to a bizarre, previously made adaptation you've likely never seen. A full 10 years before Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring, the...

Lord of the Ring Stars Have a Request for Tolkien Fans

They want help purchasing the author's former home in Oxford

(Newser) - There's not currently a literary center devoted to the late JRR Tolkien, among the world's most celebrated authors. But if celebrities including Sir Ian McKellen (Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings films) have their way, there soon will be. A campaign called Project Northmoor is raising funds...

If You Don't Know Who He Is, Tolkien's Estate Is Likely Glad

Author's family and estate do not approve of the upcoming film 'Tolkien'

(Newser) - If you don't know who Nicholas Hoult is, the family and estate of JRR Tolkien is likely glad. The actor is starring as a young Tolkien in a film focusing on the author's "formative years," and the two entities on Tuesday put out a statement making...

LOTR TV Show Is Coming, Preciousssss

Amazon paid a reported $250M for TV rights

(Newser) - Fans of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings can prepare for "a new epic journey in Middle Earth." Amazon has announced plans to create a TV series inspired by the fantasy trilogy after acquiring the global TV rights for a reported $250 million, reports Deadline . The company...

Their Names Are on Tolkien's Grave. Now, They're a Book

He wrote fairy tale while recovering from WWI

(Newser) - JRR Tolkien's fairy tale love story Beren and Luthien is now a book—100 years after he came up with the story as a 24-year-old WWI veteran traumatized by the horror of the trenches. The book was edited by Christopher Tolkien, the author's 92-year-old son, who includes Tolkien'...

How Tolkien's War Experience Gave Us His Masterpiece

Young author began writing 'Lord of the Rings' at Somme

(Newser) - Thousands in France today are commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme, a five-month siege during World War I that left more than 1 million men killed or wounded, reports the BBC . One of those who served was a 24-year-old Brit named JRR Tolkien,...

Lost Tolkien Poems Found in School Annual

Christmas poem, love poem from 1936 'overwhelmed' UK principal who found them

(Newser) - In August, a previously unseen JRR Tolkien retelling of a 19th-century Finnish epic was published. Now the world will get to experience two other lost Tolkien gems: a pair of poems the Lord of the Rings author penned for an English student publication in 1936, the New York Times reports....

One-of-a-Kind Tolkien Map of Middle-Earth Unearthed

$92K map, full of author's notes, has been found in illustrator's collection

(Newser) - A one-of-a-kind map of Middle-earth filled with JRR Tolkien's own green ink and penciled notes has been found in renowned illustrator Pauline Baynes' copy of The Lord of the Rings. Baynes appears to have removed the map from an earlier edition as she began to work on a color...

Sorry, Moscow, No 'Eye of Sauron' for You
 Sorry, Moscow, No 
 'Eye of Sauron' for You 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Sorry, Moscow, No 'Eye of Sauron' for You

'Demonic' glowing eye on top of skyscraper nixed after church protest

(Newser) - "Sadly, we are obliged to halt the Eye of Sauron" is both the best line from a press release you'll read all week and the worst. Russian creative art group Svecheniye has halted a "fan project" that would have placed a menacing, pulsing eye like the one...

Ancient Croc Named for Lord of the Rings Beast

'Anthracosuchus balrogus' survived mass extinction 65M years ago

(Newser) - There's a new ancient beast in town—a 900-pound, 16-foot crocodile of sorts who "ate turtles and battled monster snakes"—and he's been named in honor of Balrog, the monster who lurked in the depths of JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth. "Much like that giant...

Tolkien's 'New' Labor of Love: Beowulf

'Lost' Beowulf translation published almost 90 years later

(Newser) - In 1926, an Oxford University professor named JRR Tolkien finished a translation of Beowulf—in his words, the "greatest of the surviving works of ancient English poetic art." Tolkien called the 11th-century work "sombre, tragic, sinister," and "curiously real," the Guardian notes. Elements of...

5 Writers Even Slower Than George RR Martin

JRR Tolkien, Junot Diaz couldn't match pace of Game of Thrones books

(Newser) - Fans are impatient for George RR Martin's next installment in A Song of Ice and Fire, the book series behind Game of Thrones. But instead of getting on his case, let's consider some authors who take even longer to write a book than he does. Yohana Desta offers...

This May Be the Ring Behind Lord of the Rings

Roman gold ring said to have inspired JRR Tolkien

(Newser) - Could a Roman gold ring linked to a curse have inspired JRR Tolkien to create The One Ring? Britain's National Trust and the Tolkien Society have put the artifact on display this week for Lord of the Rings fans to decide for themselves. The gold ring is inscribed in...

The Hobbit No Match for Lord of the Rings

 The Hobbit No Match 
 for Lord of the Rings 
movie review

The Hobbit No Match for Lord of the Rings

Too-long Peter Jackson fantasy burdened by expectations: critics

(Newser) - The Hobbit comes weighted with high expectations—and this lengthy prequel doesn't quite meet them, critics say. Though the film has some great visuals, it drags at times. And critics agree: Don't see it at 48 frames per second. It just looks too real.
  • The film "is
...

Heirs of Tolkien, Dickens Collaborate on Books

Michael Tolkien will write, Gerald Dickens will narrate

(Newser) - The descendants of literary royalty are coming together on two new children's fantasy books. JRR Tolkien's grandson, Michael Tolkien, will write the two novels—which will be based on stories Tolkien himself read to him when he was young—and Charles Dickens' great-great grandson, Gerald Dickens, will narrate...

Why Tolkien Wasn't Given Nobel Prize: Bad Writing

Jury member was not impressed with storytelling

(Newser) - His novels became classics, but back in 1961, JRR Tolkien's work wasn't good enough for the Nobel Prize committee. The Lord of the Rings author was nominated that year by fellow fantasy author CS Lewis, but the committee rejected him because his writing wasn't good enough, the...

Angry Experts: Don't Call Hobbits Tea Partiers

John McCain's insults irritate Tolkien scholars

(Newser) - Not so fast, John McCain. Insults linking the Tea Party to hobbits are making some Middle-earth experts as irritable as Saruman. McCain might have derided unrealistic demands by "Tea Party hobbits" during the debt-ceiling debate , but he was exposing his lack of knowledge about the height-challenged creatures, they say....

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