2001 The Hobbit (Carol Jordan Stewart)

Release Date: 2001
Reader: Carol Jordan Stewart
Language: English
Organization: American Printing House for the Blind
Translator: n/a
Copyright: © 1938 Houghton Mifflin
ISBN: n/a
Duration: 9 hours 17 minutes
Unabridged: Yes
Country: USA
Licenced: Yes
Formats: 2 C-90 : analog, 15/16 ips, 4 track, mono
NLS Book Number: RC 48978

Carol Jordan Stewart is an award winning audiobook narrator who has recorded over 300 titles. Along with her work as a commercial narrator, she records books for the Talking Book Program of the Library of Congress. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky. The library of Congress database lists her first name spelt with an additional ‘e’ (ie Carole) but in all other online listings it is not spelt that way, so this is either a typo or perhaps she dropped the ‘e’.

This is the third of three recordings made so far by the Library of Congress. The first was by Alan Haines in possibly 1976 and then Bob Askey in 1978.

The combination of C-90, 15/16 ips, and 4-track mono was a bespoke standard for the Library of Congress Talking Books program and the Royal National Institute for the Blind for several decades. To hear these properly, you would need a dedicated Library of Congress C-1 Cassette Player or a similar “Talking Book” machine, which has a specific switch for 15/16 speed and a Track Select knob (1, 2, 3, 4).

A standard music cassette plays at 1 7/8 ips (inches per second) and uses two tracks (Left/Right) for Side A and two for Side B. 15/16 ips is exactly half the speed of a normal cassette player. A C-90 tape (normally 90 minutes) now lasts 3 hours for one full pass of the tape. 4-Track Mono means that instead of two stereo tracks, the tape is divided into four independent mono tracks. You listen to Track 1, then flip or switch to Track 2, then Track 3, then Track 4.