“And when he said gollum he made a horrible swallowing noise in his throat. That is how he got his name, though he always called himself ‘my precious.’” Later: “He took to thieving, and going about muttering to himself, and gurgling in his throat.” This creature has, I believe, an ancestor, who likewise once delayed a poor innocent with his questions.

That is a character, minor but tremendous, whom David Copperfield encounters on his way to Dover—one of the multitude to which a boundless imagination grants a moment’s illumination. I’ll just give myself the pleasure of quoting part of the episode. Perhaps it will bring some new reader to the immortal novel.

Seeking to sell his jacket in order to buy a little food for his journey, the boy inspects slop-shops, where second-hand clothes are sold.

       At last I found one that I thought looked promising, at the corner of a dirty lane, ending in an inclosure full of stinging-nettles, against the palings of which some second-hand sailors’ clothes, that seemed to have overflowed the shop, were fluttering among some cots, and rusty guns, and oilskin hats, and certain trays full of so many old rusty keys of so many sizes that they seemed various enough to open all the doors in the world.
       Into this shop, which was low and small, and which was darkened rather than lighted by a little window, overhung with clothes, and was descended into by some steps, I went with a palpitating heart; which was not relieved when an ugly old man, with the lower part of his face all covered with a stubbly grey beard, rushed out of a dirty den behind it, and seized me by the hair of my head. He was a dreadful old man to look at, in a filthy flannel waistcoat, and smelling terribly of rum. His bedstead, covered with a tumbled and ragged piece of patchwork, was in the den he had come from, where another little window showed a prospect of more stinging-nettles, and a lame donkey.
       ‘Oh, what do you want?’ grinned this old man, in a fierce, monotonous whine. ‘Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo, goroo!’
       I was so much dismayed by these words, and particularly by the repetition of the last unknown one, which was a kind of rattle in his throat, that I could make no answer; hereupon the old man, still holding me by the hair, repeated:
       ‘Oh, what do you want? Oh, my eyes and limbs, what do you want? Oh, my lungs and liver, what do you want? Oh, goroo!’—which he screwed out of himself, with an energy that made his eyes start in his head.
       ‘I wanted to know,’ I said, trembling, ‘if you would buy a jacket.’
       ‘Oh, let’s see the jacket!’ cried the old man. ‘Oh, my heart on fire, show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!’
       With that he took his trembling hands, which were like the claws of a great bird, out of my hair; and put on a pair of spectacles, not at all ornamental to his inflamed eyes.
       ‘Oh, how much for the jacket?’ cried the old man, after examining it. ‘Oh—goroo!—how much for the jacket?’
       ‘Half-a-crown,’ I answered, recovering myself.
       ‘Oh, my lungs and liver,’ cried the old man, ‘no! Oh, my eyes, no! Oh, my limbs, no! Eighteenpence. Goroo!’
       Every time he uttered this ejaculation, his eyes seemed to be in danger of starting out; and every sentence he spoke, he delivered in a sort of tune, always exactly the same, and more like a gust of wind, which begins low, mounts up high, and falls again, than any other comparison I can find for it. …

Besides the noise in the throat, Gollum’s eyes like the old man’s are striking, his grasping hands threatening; his manner of speech is more than peculiar; and he will sometimes speak of his own body parts: “O my poor hands, gollum!” “Fissh, nice fissh. Makes us strong. Makes eyes bright, fingers tight, yes.” Then too, his whole story is of a valuable thing he had at second hand, so to speak. Altogether I cannot doubt that he has come to be not only from the banks of the Great River on the edge of Wilderland, but also from a certain slop-shop at the corner of a dirty lane. —By the way, the proprietor is called Charley.