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The Return of the King
- The Lord of the Rings, Book 3
- Narrated by: Rob Inglis
- Series: The Lord of the Rings, Book 3
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
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Summary
The complete, unabridged audiobook of The Return of the King.
Concluding the story begun in The Hobbit, this is the final part of Tolkien’s epic masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, available as a complete and unabridged audiobook.
The armies of the Dark Lord Sauron are massing as his evil shadow spreads ever wider. Men, Dwarves, Elves and Ents unite forces to do battle against the Dark. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam struggle further into Mordor in their heroic quest to destroy the One Ring.
Includes Appendix A.
Critic reviews
"An extraordinary book. It deals with a stupendous theme. It leads us through a succession of strange and astonishing episodes, some of them magnificent." (The Observer)
"Among the greatest works of imaginative fiction of the twentieth century." (Sunday Telegraph)
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What listeners say about The Return of the King
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ian
- 02-04-16
Read the book, saw the movie, loved the audiobook
I'll skip the review of the story, we all know it, its a 'Genius at work' moment. However, seeing the trilogy in the cinema, in advance of listening to this epic tale, I think improved the listen. Peter Jackson's characters almost fitted my imagining perfectly and this made listening, aided by a fantastic narration, a breeze. Oh, that there were more of it's kind out there.
10 people found this helpful
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- Darren
- 15-02-16
An epic saga
A truly epic ending to the greatest book ever written.Have read the book many times myself so it was nice to be read to for a change
8 people found this helpful
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- Jakob
- 13-04-13
Timeless classic
Marvelously done, perfect voice for the story and brings to life everything I loved about the books the first time I read them.
8 people found this helpful
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- Woosy
- 14-12-16
Tremendous
Goes without saying, a fantastic story brilliantly read. Makes time working at my sewing machine speed away.
6 people found this helpful
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- Lemonjapp
- 16-07-16
A singed loaf of bread's understatement
Perfect performance, except for the narrator's lack of ghusto when singing.
Probably the greatest piece of creative literature humanity shall ever produce. Highly recommended.
6 people found this helpful
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- DJ Morpheus
- 23-01-10
One 'Book' To Rule Them All!
WOW!! Absolutely superb! A truly amazing book, from start to finish. The Lord of the Rings movies, really don't even scratch the surface. This is, without doubt, a masterpiece. Excellently written, and narrated with style.
If you've watched the movies, and think you know what Lord of the Rings is about, think again. Get this book, and you will understand what I mean.
Absolutely brilliant!
10 people found this helpful
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- Paul J Day
- 06-04-16
Great book but missing extra chapters
Generally well read but disappointed that the last few CDs after the end of the main book are not included. Also narrator sometimes slips into the wrong accent.
Overall though a very good listen.
7 people found this helpful
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- Billy Spillane
- 19-06-20
World Building of a Master
Incredible series, absolute must listen for anyone who enjoys epic stories and worlds.
The reader is passionate and absolutely nails the characters.
If you've got few long journeys I cannot recommend more.
2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-06-20
Great
Great book and great performance, only bad thing was that the book was not longer
2 people found this helpful
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- PJJ Ryan
- 16-09-09
Lord of the Rings Return of the King Vol 1
A very well read adaptation of the Lord of the Rings. Gret pace when required and unashamed renditions of songs etc.. all the beauty of Tolkien's language brought to life
5 people found this helpful
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Overall

- Catherine
- 18-10-05
Inglis sounds like Tolkien!
As far as I know, this is the only unabridged reading of LOTR, so if you want unabridged this is the one to go for! (if you want abridged, try the BBC full cast dramatisation).
Rob Inglis has a very traditional english voice - similar to Tolkien's own. He reads in a very measured way. Not only does he read the entire book (apart from the appendices), he also sings all of the songs. I think that he suits the reading, but I find sometimes he doesn't differentiate the characters enough, and the pace is not fast. I also find that he makes the hobbits a bit too "yokel" (rural english accent) for me.
That said, I enjoyed this audiobook and would recommend it. The only thing to be aware of is that Audible have divided it into six separate audiobooks, so to listen to the whole of LOTR, you are going to have to buy them all.
9 people found this helpful
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- Katy
- 03-01-17
Finally!
Would you listen to The Return of the King again? Why?
Absolutely. The narrator was excellent and the story is timeless.
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Return of the King?
(No spoilers, I promise) Toward the end there is a whole section that was not in the films at all. This was my first time reading and it made the story new again for a film fan.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
Of course, but I don't want to give away anything.
Any additional comments?
As a long-time Lord of the Rings movie fan, I finally tuckered down and listened to the books. They are fantastic. They are filled with new (to me) characters and additional stories that you wouldn't know about if you'd only watched the films. Definitely get this series on your "to read" list.
4 people found this helpful
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- Mustafa Kara
- 24-09-17
About the narrator
We all know that the book itself is really good. As for the narrator’s performance, it wouldn’t be better. He gives every character a distinct voice and his pronunciations are great. He even sang the songs in the book, and he did pretty well. I sometimes listen to the songs he sang. In brief, Rob Inglis is the best.
1 person found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 04-07-22
A Classic tale ends
Its a given that this story is great. The narrator is on point but the audio is not perfectly clean.
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- Francisco Montas
- 17-01-21
The Perfect End
This is one of the rare occasions where a writer, not only develops the thematic ending to the main characters, and even secondary characters, but really closes the thematic argument of the whole saga and all other subplots very gracefully.
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- Noam Blum
- 30-06-20
Graet
Please note: Audible posts reviews at its discretion. All the submitted reviews become the property of Audible.com as set forth in our Conditions of Use. In most cases, reviews will be processed for display in one or two days.
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- Alison Diprose
- 03-09-19
New Audiobook Recording needed
This masterpiece of a book is not done justice to by this dates reading that has been the only one available for years and years. It is
Time for a new unabridged interpretation of this outstanding trilogy. It would be great if this could include singing that sounded as if sung by elves. There is so much better technology available now that a new audio version is sorely needed.
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- magnus stefansson
- 07-03-19
wonderful story
I have never gotten around to listening to lotr but now that I have I wish I could forget and experience this wonderful story anew.
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- Stormcrow
- 03-11-18
Perfect
Just perfect . Tolkien's work read masterfully by Rob Inglis made me feel like I was with the fellowship every step of the way
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- Amazon Customer
- 23-08-18
Return of the King
Excellent! Rob Inglis superbly narrates the thrilling final volume of the LOTR trilogy. A wonderful listening experience.