"The Spoken Word" features the voices of 48 of the country's greatest literary talents, all born before 1900.Among the writers, J.R.R. Tolkein reads extracts from his Lord of the Rings trilogy, Arthur Conan Doyle explains the origins of Sherlock Holmes and Wells laments the rise of the motor car.

19 J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)The Lord of the RingsExtract 1: The Fellowship of the Ring. From Book 1, Chapter II: The Shadow of the PastDuration: 0.54Extract 2: The Fellowship of The Ring. From Book 2, Chapter VIII: Farewell to Lorien. Great Elvish poem in plain-chant, ‘Ai! laurië lantar’Duration: 0.52Date of recording: 08.1952Total duration: 1.46

These original recordings, which Tolkien made with friends in the summer of 1952, gave him the needed reassurance to continue the search for a publisher for his original manuscript. These archival recordings encompass selections from Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.This collection also includes a wonderful treat, Poems and Songs of Middle Earth (poems in English and Elvish from The Lord of the Rings and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil), with The Road Goes Even On sung by William Elvin with composer Donald Swann at the piano. And, finally, JRR Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien, reads from his father's The Silmarillion, one of the first, and finest, of Tolkien's stories.