Andy Serkis, famous for playing Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings, is set to narrate a new audiobook series of the legendary J.R.R. Tolkien novels.

The new audiobook version of the classic trilogy will come out on September 16, and follow on from Serkis’ recent readathon of The Hobbit.

“Walking back into Middle-Earth over 20 years after my first life-changing adventure there and experiencing it all over again — this time for many weeks alone in a sound booth — has brought in equal measures of pure joy, sheer madness, immense pleasure, and a level of psychological and physical fatigue I have never quite experienced the like of before,” Serkis said in a statement.

“Having now completed the quest and been ‘there and back again… again,’ I realise what a phenomenal privilege it has been to have had the opportunity to read this sublime work once more.

“My only hope, now, is that I have done it justice, and that the listening experience conveys the power and beauty of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece.”

Pre-orders for the three new audiobooks are available now here, here and here.

Last year during the first coronavirus lockdown, Serkis raised £280,000 by reading the whole J.R.R. Tolkien book The Hobbit in one sitting as part of a charity readathon.

It took the actor just under 11 hours to finish the book, and he was watched by upwards of 650,000 people.

The money raised will be split evenly between NHS Charities Together and children’s charity Best Beginnings, of which Serkis is an ambassador.

Serkis also recently revealed that he used to “walk on all fours off set when we were filming Lord of the Rings” to get into character as Gollum, admitting it was “pretty method”.