1999 The Lord of the Rings (David Palmer)

Release Date: 1999.05.01
Reader: David Palmer
Language: English
Organization: Library of Congress
Translator: n/a
Copyright: © 1938 Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: n/a
Duration: 53 hours 04 minutes
Unabridged: Yes
Country: USA
Licenced: Yes
Formats: 11 x C-90; analog, 15/16 ips, 4 track, mono, Digital
NLS Book Number: 1999: RC 47486 RC 47487 RC 47488 2008: DB47486, DB47487, DB47488

Produced by American Printing House for the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled service of the Library of Congress. This reading was made purely for eligible members of this special library service in the USA and not available for commercial release.

David Palmer was former chair of the Theatre Arts Department at the University of Louisville. He was also an accomplished translator. There is an acting scholarship awarded at U of L in his name. David recorded hundreds of books for APH – he particularly enjoyed narrating horror fiction – before his unexpected death in 2000.

This was the third recording of The Lord of the Rings by the Library of Congress. The initial 1968 reading by Norman Barrs which had been replaced for a while by the fully complete 1971 reading by Livingston Gilbert on vinyl until the move to cassette in 1978 restored the more popular Norman Barrs, which was itself replaced by this. As, after several decades, the NLS commissioned a fresh, high-fidelity, and a more complete recording to celebrate the turn of the millennium.

It marked the first time since the withdrawn 1971 Gilbert version that NLS patrons had access to a more comprehensive (tho not unabridged) reading of Appendices A–F. Appendices B through F were not read in the same word-for-word exhaustive manner that Livingston Gilbert did in 1971. Instead, Palmer followed the 1990s NLS Standard Unabridged protocol, which meant Appendix A was read in full. Appendix B was read as a narrative summary of the major dates, rather than a literal reading of every single calendar entry. Appendix C, D, E, F are narrated as descriptive summaries. For example, in the linguistic sections (E and F), Palmer explains the rules of the pronunciation and the history of the languages, but he does not read every single character entry in the phonetic tables or every name in the genealogical trees.

This version was the first to be designed specifically for the transition from the old 4-track cassettes to the digital BARD (Braille and Audio Reading Download) system. It featured Navigation Points, allowing blind users to jump specifically to Appendix A or The Tale of Years for the first time without having to fast-forward through hours of tape. It was also produced in a bespoke cassette format which required listeners to have either an NLS authorized ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 digital talking book (dtb) player compatible with NLS flash cartridges or a BARD password and NLS authorized digital talking book player.