J.R.R. Tolkien Reads from The Hobbit

In this 15 minute audio clip, J.R.R. Tolkien reads from The Hobbit. Apparently, in August of 1952, Tolkien was visiting a friend who showed him a tape recorder, something that Tolkien hadn’t seen previously. His friend then asked him to read from The Hobbit and this recording is the the result. We hear in Tolkien’s own voice Bilbo’s first encounter with Gollum from the Riddles in the Dark chapter.