“Hobbit Dinner” in Rotterdam
The Hobbit-maaltijd refers to an event in which J.R.R. Tolkien participated on 28 March 1958. Tolkien had been invited to Rotterdam for a "Hobbit Dinner" by his Dutch publisher Het Spectrum and the bookseller Voorhoeve & Dietrich.
Background
The "Hobbit-maaltijd"
The dinner was held at an assembly hall, the Flevo-hall, part of a building called the Twaalf Provinciën Huis, that no longer exists. Author Hella Haasse was one of the guests at the large dinner.
Tolkien's speech
Tolkien delivered his brief speech in English and Dutch, in the middle of which is a poem "Twenty years have flowed away down the long river", in Quenya and English. His finishing statement is quoted in Carpenter's Biography.
In 1993, an audio recording of the speech was discovered by René van Rossenberg (which remains unreleased), who later in 1995 published an article in Mythlore 80 detailing the events of that night. (see here)
An excerpt of the recording appeared in an online article in 2014.
Beside the oral deliverance Tolkien also prepared a written manuscript for the speech, which contains three versions of the Quenya poem. In 2024, part of the speech and the full texts of the poem are now published as entry 182 in The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024).
Referencias
1. Esta ficha se ha importado inicialmente de TolkienGateway.net el día 19/05/2026.
