🧩 Philosophy Jul 1, 2026 · Maria Popova

Tolkien Reads from “The Hobbit” in Rare Archival Audio from His First Encounter with a Tape Recorder

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Tolkien Reads from “The Hobbit” in Rare Archival Audio from His First Encounter with a Tape Recorder
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“He was Gollum — as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes.”

J.R.R. Tolkien (January 3, 1892–September 2, 1973) firmly believed that there is no such thing as writing “for children” and that creative fantasy serves to set the ageless human imagination free. Nowhere was Tolkien’s ethos more perfectly enacted than in his 1937 fantasy novel The Hobbit (public library), a book so beloved that Tolkien’s own little-known illustrations for

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