Serkis to read new unabridged audiobook of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion

HarperCollins will release a brand-new unabridged audiobook of The Silmarillion by J R R Tolkien this June, edited by Christopher Tolkien and read by the BAFTA award-winning actor, director and author Andy Serkis.

In 2020, Serkis embarked on his #Hobbitathon, a live, cover-to-cover reading of The Hobbit, in an 11-hour sitting, with the intent to raise money for Covid-19 relief efforts. He reprised this performance in a new recording of The Hobbit audiobook, and returned to Middle-earth the following year with a new recording of The Lord of the Rings, speaking more than 10 of Tolkien’s invented languages and voicing more than 100 different characters.

In addition to being major audio bestsellers, both titles were critically acclaimed, with The Hobbit winning Grand Gold for Best Solo Audio Narration at the New York Festivals Radio Awards 2021, and The Lord of the Rings winning Gold the following year, as well as being nominated for Best Audiobook at the British Book Awards 2022.

Serkis said: “The Silmarillion was always going to be a hard mountain to climb, and therefore perhaps the most rewarding. I was seriously daunted. Whereas the narrative structure and characters of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings provide the narrator with an immense propulsion, The Silmarillion is like reading an extraordinary, ancient bible, with its own creation mythology spanning many ages, written over many years. But once in the flow of Tolkien’s poetic imagination, and limitless authority of his universe, there were passages that I found myself completely mesmerised by as I was reading, and it became a thrillingly wild and magical experience. I can only hope the listener feels the same way.”

Chris Smith, publishing director, said: “HarperCollins is proud to be the official worldwide publisher of the works of J R R  Tolkien, and we consider The Silmarillion, as prepared for publication by Christopher Tolkien, the shining jewel in the crown of Tolkien’s literary achievements. It contains riches, with tales from the First, Second and Third Ages of Middle-earth full of soaring drama, powerful romance and sweeping adventure. It stands at the heart of Tolkien’s invented world yet, for many, remains a vast and wondrous undiscovered country still to be explored. We are delighted that we once again have an actor of the calibre of Andy Serkis who can bring its qualities to life so brilliantly for a whole new audience, and lead them on an exciting new journey into Middle-earth.”

Published in 1977, 40 years after The Hobbit first introduced the world to Tolkien’s Middle-earth, The Silmarillion sold more than one million copies in its first year of publication and has gone on to be translated into almost 40 languages. It was the first of 17 Middle-earth books produced by J R R Tolkien’s son, Christopher, who was his father’s literary executor and who died in 2020, aged 95, after a lifetime dedicated to curating his father’s work for publication.