Jabberwocky Audiocassettes for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

In 1979 a company by the name of AVC Corporation (who have operated under the brand "Jabberwocky" and additionally "The Mind's Eye") recorded and produced audio dramatized versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for broadcast on National Public Radio.

The Lord of the Rings was dramatized by Bernard Mayes, while The Hobbit was dramatized by Bob Lewis. Both state a copyright of 1979.

Many collectors and Tolkien fans are aware of the Mind's Eye sets that have been released in wooden boxes, both on cassette and compact disc, but these were originally released for schools to use under the Jabberwocky brand. These Jabberwocky recordings are special in that they include booklets with the full scripts of the dramatizations, for students to read along with the recordings. Also included are teacher's supplements (one for each of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) which include a biography of Tolkien, background material on how each story came to be published, and a long section of questions and follow up activities for teachers to do with their students after each "lesson".

Wayne and Christina mentioned on their blog back in 2012 that they had acquired one of the Lord of the Rings boxed sets. I have had the Jabberwocky Hobbit boxed sets for a very long time, but just the booklets for The Lord of the Rings - when Wayne and Christina posted about their acquisition, I started watching seriously for a set myself, and it took about five years to run across one. As you can see from the pictures, my set came from a school library with discreet markings on the books, cassette cases, and the box.

The Hobbit full set comes in six boxes, each with a book and cassette. Wayne Hammond's Tolkien Bibliography mentions that these come in two, four or six cassettes, but I have only personally run across sets with six. The OCLC WorldCat shows various sets from one to six cassettes, but with a lot of help from Wayne it seems like there are only two variants - a four cassette version (with longer playback times per cassette, and splitting chapters across cassettes) and the six cassette version seen here. The OCLC states that the six cassette version runs 270 minutes, and the four cassette version runs 285 minutes.

The Lord of the Rings set comes in a single large box, with the twelve cassettes (color coded to each volume), twelve books with the scripts for each cassette, and a thick 94 page Teacher's Supplement. (I sadly note that the Teacher's Supplement calls The Lord of the Rings a "trilogy" in multiple locations.)

Christina Scull writes a very thorough review of the differences between these recordings and the BBC recordings in Amon Hen #95 (available to download for free for Tolkien Society members from their website).

Ref: Hammond and Anderson, J. R. R. Tolkien A Descriptive Bibliography, p. 24
Ref: Scull and Hammond, The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, Reader's Guide Part I, p. 18.
Ref: "Middle-earth on Radio" by Christina Scull, Amon Hen #95, p. 10-13