Tolkien's work, after an initially mixed reception by the literary establishment, has been the subject of extensive analysis of its themes and origins. Some later editions print the entire work in a single volume, following the author's original intent. The work is divided internally into six books, two per volume, with several appendices of background material.
For economic reasons, The Lord of the Rings was published over the course of a year from 29 July 1954 to 20 October 1955, in three volumes titled The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. From homely beginnings in the Shire, a hobbit land reminiscent of the English countryside, the story ranges across Middle-earth, following the quest to destroy the One Ring mainly through the eyes of the hobbits Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin.Īlthough often called a trilogy, the work was intended by Tolkien to be one volume of a two-volume set along with The Silmarillion. The title refers to the story's main antagonist, the Dark Lord Sauron, who in an earlier age created the One Ring to rule the other Rings of Power given to Men, Dwarves, and Elves, in his campaign to conquer all of Middle-earth. Written in stages between 19, The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written, with over 150 million copies sold. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some distant time in the past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book The Hobbit, but eventually developed into a much larger work. The Lord of the Rings is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. 20 October 1955 ( The Return of the King).29 July 1954 ( The Fellowship of the Ring).Hopefully this should allow everyone interested to get a copy.
Sharpen your google-fu) Second update April 2020Īpparently the files are on now: There are versions on youtube and soundcloud. (That would be surprising given how easy it is to find nowadays. Hopefully someone with more bandwidth can host this content so it doesn't vanish from the internets. This page is now the #1 link on google when searching for "dragash lotr" and the network traffic it generates has become unreasonable.įor that reason, unfortunately, the following links will disappear Soon™. The books have been available from here for a while nowĪnd looking at the server logs, it seems like a lot of people found the links useful.
Google will get you to the original mediafire links however. I'm really glad I did this, since we really enjoyed the books - and finished it juuuuuust in time on the way back home - but also I can't find the links on youtube anymore. (we were camping in Kentucky with not-so-good wifi) I went ahead and downloaded each mp3 to have a local copy of the complete trilogy.
Not only read by me, but with music by Howard Shore (for the film trilogy),Īnd immersive sound effects that provide the written word with a more lifelike experience.Īt the time, each chapter was posted as a single video on youtube and each video had a '' link in its description from which you could download the mp3. Tolkien’s "The Lord of the Rings" unofficial unabridged audiobook. So I started to look for a good version and found Phil Dragash's version. I don't remember exactly why, but I thought it would be a good idea to listen to a Lord of the Rings audiobook while camping and resting. In 2014, I went on a 3 weeks rock climbing trip with a friend. Lord of the Rings - Audiobook Soundscape by Phil Dragash