Listen to J.R.R. Tolkien Read ‘The Lord of the Rings’

Happy belated Tolkien Reading Day!

After several decades, a rare recording of J.R.R. Tolkien reading passages from The Lord of the Rings resurfaced just in time for Tolkien Reading Day! For the last fourteen years, the Tolkien Society has designated March 25th as a reading holiday in honor of the adored writer of The Hobbit, The LotR trilogy, and The Silmarillion. Diehard fans of The Lord of the Rings will recognize this as the date that the nefarious ring was destroyed in the blazing fires of Mount Doom. According to Aletia, Tolkien, a medievalist scholar and Catholic, presumably chose this day as a nod to Medieval Catholicism, which formerly subscribed to the belief that March 25th was the date Jesus died on the cross and triumphed over evil.

A reader of the website Brain Pickings, Eugene F. Douglass, Jr., dredged up the long-forgotten recordings of Tolkien reading from LoTR to commemorate his legacy. It starts with with Chapter 1 of Book I of The Fellowship of the Ring. Enjoy the full recording here:

The Damage of ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’