The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

Tolkien, J.R.R.

ISBN 10: 144586150X ISBN 13: 9781445861500

Publisher: BBC Books, 2011

Synopsis

These magical adaptations became instant classics when they were first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and continue to delight today. Tolkien's epic tale of Middle-earth has all the classic ingredients of fantasy and adventure: dwarves, elves, goblins, and trolls, a terrifying dragon, a great wizard, a fearsome evil, a perilous quest, and a dramatic climax. With an all-star cast including Ian Holm, Michael Hordern, Robert Stephens, John le Mesurier, and Bill Nighy, these enchanting dramatizations are a must for all Tolkien fans.

19 CDs. 17 hrs 30 mins.

About this title

Review

Hobbits and wizards and Sauron--oh, my! Mild-mannered Oxford scholar John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had little inkling when he published The Hobbit; Or, There and Back Again in 1937 that, once hobbits were unleashed upon the world, there would be no turning back. Hobbits are, of course, small, furry creatures who love nothing better than a leisurely life quite free from adventure. But in that first novel and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, the hobbits Bilbo and Frodo and their elvish friends get swept up into a mighty conflict with the dragon Smaug, the dark lord Sauron (who owes much to proud Satan in Paradise Lost), the monstrous Gollum, the Cracks of Doom, and the awful power of the magical Ring. The four books' characters--good and evil--are recognizably human, and the realism is deepened by the magnificent detail of the vast parallel world Tolkien devised, inspired partly by his influential Anglo-Saxon scholarship and his Christian beliefs. (He disapproved of the relative sparseness of detail in the comparable allegorical fantasy his friend C.S. Lewis dreamed up in The Chronicles of Narnia, though he knew Lewis had spun a page-turning yarn.) It has been estimated that one-tenth of all paperbacks sold can trace their ancestry to J.R.R. Tolkien. But even if we had never gotten Robert Jordan's The Path of Daggers and the whole fantasy genre Tolkien inadvertently created by bringing the hobbits so richly to life, Tolkien's epic about the Ring would have left our world enhanced by enchantment. --Tim Appelo

About the Author

J. R. R. Tolkien was born in 1892. From 1925-1959 he was an Oxford Professor, first of Anglo Saxon and then of English Language and Literature, but is best known as the author of the fantasy classics The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Edition details

• Publisher: BBC Books
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 144586150X
• ISBN 13: 9781445861500
• Binding: Audio CD
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 1