The Fellowship of the Ring (Dramatized)

By: J. R. R. Tolkien

Narrated by: An Ensemble Cast

Length: 3 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

Here is the original American full dramatization, as broadcast on National Public Radio.

In the ancient lands of Middle-earth, a place of elves and dwarves, Orcs and wizards, the darkest evil and the brightest good, a hobbit named Frodo Baggins embarks on a perilous quest: to carry the One Ring, ruler of all the Rings of Power, into the shadowy land of Mordor and destroy it in the fires where it was forged.

They're precious! Listen to all of our classic NPR dramatizations of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series:

The Hobbit (Dramatized)

The Two Towers (Dramatized)

The Return of the King (Dramatized)

©1979, 1994 Christopher R. Tolkien, Michael H.R. Tolkien, John F.R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M.A.R. Tolkien (P)1979, 1994 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"The best available." ( Booklist)
"This collection...is a masterpiece." ( The Courier)
"Spirited productions...stirring music." ( Washington Post)

A Lord of the Rings fan

I loved listening to this story as I do chores around the house. Dramatized!

Poor recording quality

The voices are of inconsistent volume and often sound muffled. Makes listening difficult and hard to understand

Minus some stars for overusing some actors but...

I don't feel this program is the travesty many believe it to be. This could of course be because this was my first exposure to Middle-Earth and I was only ten or so at the time. Even now at 31 I still have a soft spot for this program, even after hearing the BBC's version. Of course this soft spot could also be due to the fact that despite its flaws this program still remains most faithful to the books and features a reasonably well-performed version of one of my favorite parts, that being the scenes with Tom Bombadil, which the 1981 BBC radiodrama, released three years or so after this version, omits entirely as does the 2001 film, much to the displeasure of many fans.
But if you enjoyed the American performance of The Hobbit, you may enjoy the rest of the series just as much since old favorite actors such as Ray Reinhardt (Bilbo), Tom Loose (Thorin and now Aragorn), and Bernard Mayes (Gandalf), return in this program alon with newcomer James Arrington as Frodo and, strangely enough, Saruman as well. I wasn't entirely thrilled with the guy who portrayed Elrond, since he always sounded to me as though he constantly had a frog in his throat. I will however acknowledge the fact that he sounds somewhat less like that in the LOTR trilogy than he did in The Hobbit itself. The only cast member I really didn't like was Lu Bliss, the lady who plays Sam. I don't know if it was the New York/Jersey accent or what, but I could never get into her performance. One other thing I found rather unnerving about this version to say the least, was the almost overwhelming presence of Sci-Fi-like laser effects whenever Gandalf used his magic. Granted this is more in reference to Two Towers and Return of the King than in Fellowship, but it does become distracting in those later programs. Aside from that though, the sound effects are actually quite good, the horses' hooves not least of all. In the BBC version they sounded much more like tapdancers in my opinion than actual horses.

A little strange..

I'm used to Audiobooks but this one was a little annoying.. Had alot of sound effects...

Fun listen, but not whole story

I enjoyed it as a whole, but was bummed that so much of the actual book was left out.

Awesome

It was a great book to listen to.
Great just fantastic, you guys should listen to the book.

Very enjoyable

As a fan of Tolkien's work on Middle Earth and Arda I enjoyed very much this book despite of some of the cringe worthy moments on regards to voice acting. There's not much to say about it, it's just a weirdly acted piece of classic literature.

amazing

love radio shows this really works on the imagination quite well for all fans

american npr adaptation of the lord of the rings

This is not a bad dramatisation of a classic. i had to have it because i am a huge tolkien fan (i already own the audiobook on cds). but if you are bothered by the american pronunciations, i would highly recommend the bbc dramatisation of the LOTR with ian holm voicing frodo. the bbc version is also available from audible. i give the bbc versions 5 stars.

Very well done

Narration done by Ensemble cast is amazing. Characters were done in a perfect way.
I would recommend this audio book, a must.