Customer Reviews

The Hobbit (Wood Box Edition)

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Back in the late 1970's, in an era when radio drama was disappearing from public radio, the American prodcution of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" were created with a full cast of voice actors along with music and sound effects. Reminiscent of the radio dramas of the 1940's and 50's, these productions were usually aired on Sunday afternoons, when a family could listen and enjoy the week's story. Released on Jabberwocky Audio on cassette tapes, I remember the Christmas when I received the entire collection of Jabberwocky's stories on tape. From "The Hobbit" to "Alice in Wonderland" to "The Red Badge of Courage," all were classic tales. They even re-released on cassette some of the original radio productions, such as "War of the Worlds" and "The Gift of the Magi." These stories were designed to get the listener interested and promote reading the books the productions were based on. They were not designed for an adult audience, but rather for children and families to share. Wonderfully edited and masterfully performed, many modern audiences find these old productions a little silly or even perhaps dated, but play it for a child, and they will listen in rapture, just as I did 25 years ago when they were new. Of all my collection of the Jabberwocky tapes, "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" are the only ones that I have trouble playing today, because they have been played so many times over the years that they are worn out. We would play them in the car on road trips, I would play them in my room while putting together a puzzle, and I played them for my friends, who enjoyed them as much as I did. I am delighted to have it on CD to listen to over and over again. At seven years of age, I had not yet read the books when I first listened to the tapes. But the tapes were perfect for a small girl just getting interested in reading. If only all the rest of the old radio dramas were also on CD! I would buy them all. It was unfortunate to come to this website and see the poor reviews written by people who have no understanding of the history of the production or what demographic it was originally intended for. I look forward to the day when I can play these CD's for my own children and see the wonder and delight in their faces when they hear the same stories that I grew up with.

Back in the late 1970's, in an era when radio drama was disappearing from public radio, the American prodcution of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit" were created with a full cast of voice actors along with music and sound effects. Reminiscent of the radio dramas of the 1940's and 50's, these productions were usually aired on Sunday afternoons, when a family could listen and enjoy the week's story. Released on Jabberwocky Audio on cassette tapes, I remember the Christmas when I received the entire collection of Jabberwocky's stories on tape. From "The Hobbit" to "Alice in Wonderland" to "The Red Badge of Courage," all were classic tales. They even re-released on cassette some of the original radio productions, such as "War of the Worlds" and "The Gift of the Magi." These stories were designed to get the listener interested and promote reading the books the productions were based on. They were not designed for an adult audience, but rather for children and families to share. Wonderfully edited and masterfully performed, many modern audiences find these old productions a little silly or even perhaps dated, but play it for a child, and they will listen in rapture, just as I did 25 years ago when they were new. Of all my collection of the Jabberwocky tapes, "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" are the only ones that I have trouble playing today, because they have been played so many times over the years that they are worn out. We would play them in the car on road trips, I would play them in my room while putting together a puzzle, and I played them for my friends, who enjoyed them as much as I did. I am delighted to have it on CD to listen to over and over again. At seven years of age, I had not yet read the books when I first listened to the tapes. But the tapes were perfect for a small girl just getting interested in reading. If only all the rest of the old radio dramas were also on CD! I would buy them all. It was unfortunate to come to this website and see the poor reviews written by people who have no understanding of the history of the production or what demographic it was originally intended for. I look forward to the day when I can play these CD's for my own children and see the wonder and delight in their faces when they hear the same stories that I grew up with.

This is the version produced by National Public Radio a long time ago. This is not the BBC version, which is IMHO an inferior product compared to this one. In fact, when I first bought this product, it was on cassette tape. I firmly believe that this version is the best audio presentation ever produced of tolkiens work. Why? Well, its really a voice character based play complete with ambient sound effects, it's theater of the mind set in tolkiens universe. It's NOT a plain old voice of one person doing his best to give you a read over like some grandpa reading a bedside story (not that i'm against that mind you, it's just not my cup of tea, ya know). My kids grew up hearing this on long car trips, and it kept us all entertained with a shared universe we could all enjoy at the same time. My tapes had gone bad and I thought we would never be able to hear this great and wonderful audio play again. Lo and behold, its on CD and Amazon has it. It's now playing behind me as I write this review and my youngest, home from college on break, is enjoying it with me. "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit", go Bilbo, go Tolkien, go Amazon and NPR.

I am not normally one to endorse 'dramatized' versions of books. An author's work deserves to be viewed as created by the author, not as condensed and interpreted by actors/directors, in the case of a movie dramatization or the audio presentation of a book.
That being said, I am willing to endorse this dramatized version of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit". The storyline is true to the book, as are the dialogs. This Four CD collection presents an opportunity to listen to several hours of a classical fantasy tale, complete with songs, pronunciations of elven and dwarven words and names, and limited, appropriate, sound effects.

I played the CD's in the car on a long road trip; it helped to keep my mind occupied as the miles ticked away. I purchased the CD version over the Cassette version of this B.B.C. production so that I might use this collection to entertain, and very likely introduce to the genre of Fantasy, my future children. I wholeheartedly recommend this collection to parents, and future parents.

I expected this to be a typical audio book with one person reading, and was surprised to find a cast of characters, music, & sound effects!! This is really well done, and I highly recommend it.

For those of you reading comments on this book I can assure that it is one of the greatest fiction works of all time and that anybody who says anything different is truly a moronic idiot and merely a waste of precious DNA.

I think all of the Tolkien books are great!After I finished reading them all, I was Stupified.I never knew how amazing a few writings of literature could be so influencing to the yong youths of the world.The LOTR books contain all of the caracteristics that an excellent book should have;adventure,suspens,fighting,love,and the greatness of good beating evil.To simply say it, I believe that the LOTR books and movies are the best ideas of all time.

Amazing reading of The Hobbit! All of the voices are perfect and really draw you further into the story. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and several friends have already asked to borrow it for road trips.

What a wonderful story from a another era. J.R.R. Tolkien had the ability to weave a story and pull the reader (or listener) into his tale. It must be 25 years ago when I first read this story and what a story it was. The Hobbit opened my eyes to a whole other world of reading. Being the son of a librarian, I was accustomed to books, but when I received this book I did not want to put it down. As I have read this story yearly, I was very excited to see the BBC dramatization released on CD. I must tell you that the BBC did a wonderful job with this story, bringing out the highs and the lows with precision and believability. You will not be disappointed with this series. Now is the time to join Bilbo and the company of Dwarves. Your adventure awaits.

The best creation of all time