2019 The Fall of Gondolin (George Holmes)

Release Date: 2019.09.01
Reader: George Holmes
Language: English
Organization: Library of Congress
Publisher: American Printing House for the Blind
ISBN: n/a
Duration: 10 hours 2 minutes
Unabridged: Yes
Country: USA
Licenced: Yes
Format: Digital
NLS Book Number: DB 92472

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.

George Holmes has recorded well over 500 books in all genres for the National Library Service & commercially. In 2002 he won the Alexander Scourby Award (recognising excellence in talking book narration which he won for The Broadview Anthology of Victorian Poetry). Since he recorded The Fall of Gondolin, he has performed all subsequent Tolkien readings for APH.

This was recorded shortly after the book’s 2018 publication to complete the set of the three “Great Tales” for the blind and print-disabled. It was announced in Talking Book Topics, Sept–Oct 2019.

Holmes is meticulous with his Elvish. His pronunciation of “Orfalch Echor” and “Ecthelion” is consistent with the latest Tolkien linguistic standards. Unlike commercial audiobooks that often omit these glossaries, the NLS mandated that Holmes read every entry, including the difficult-to-pronounce Gnomish roots from the 1910s.

This was one of the last major Tolkien works Christopher Tolkien lived to see released (he passed away in early 2020), and it was George Holmes’s successful “audition” on this that led the NLS to assign him the entire 12-volume The History of Middle-earth series starting in 2023.