Hear Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien, reading his father’s works.

Fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien, best known for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, has very few published works that explicitly reference his Catholic faith. However, the author famously said, “The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision.” But whereas the presence of Catholic Christianity in his published stories was primarily subtle, underneath the surface, it nevertheless acted as a clear foundation.

Long before John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) published his Lord of the Rings trilogy, he was honing his craft as a storyteller with his four children. Of all of them, probably Christopher John Reuel Tolkien, who just passed away January 16 at the age of 95, was particularly involved with his father’s work: he edited most of his posthumous works, and drew the original maps for The Lord of the Rings.

In the video below, shared by OpenCulture in this article, Christopher Tolkien reads the end of The Return of the King. You can visit OpenCulture’s blog post for more of these touching tracks!