The Hobbit

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, generally known simply as The Hobbit, is a children’s fantasy novel by the English author J.R.R. Tolkien, published on September 21, 1937, to wide critical acclaim.⁶ The book is set within Tolkien’s invented world of Middle-earth and follows the quest of the home-loving hobbit? Bilbo Baggins to win a share of the treasure guarded by a dragon named Smaug.⁶ Initially intended as a story for children, it has been recognized as a classic in children’s literature.⁶⁷

Tolkien began the work as a serial bedtime story for his own children, about dwarves who set out for the Lonely Mountain, in whose depths lay the treasure of a vanished underground kingdom.³ He gave the characters names drawn from or modeled on the Old Norse Poetic Edda — Thorin, Dwalin, Balin among them — and the tale carried many references to Scandinavian mythology, including a magic ring likened to the Ring of the Nibelung.³ The wizard Gandalf took his appearance from a Swiss postcard of an old man in a wide-brimmed hat, captioned “Mountain Spirit”; Tolkien at first named the wizard Bladorthin and gave “Gandalf” to the dwarf-king, only to settle in the final version on Thorin Oakenshield for the king and Gandalf for the wizard.³

Tolkien, who was then teaching Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, became absorbed enough in the invention that he wrote it down and, with his sons, drew maps of the imagined land of Middle-earth.³ The manuscript, which initially had no ending, circulated among friends until a student passed it to Susan Dagnall, an editor at the publisher Allen & Unwin, who urged Tolkien to finish it.³ Before publishing, the firm’s director Stanley Unwin gave the story to his ten-year-old son to review; the boy approved, and the book appeared in 1937.³

The story is told as an episodic quest, with most chapters introducing a particular creature or kind of creature from Tolkien’s geography.⁶ Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a gathering for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of twelve dwarves — Dwalin, Balin, Kíli, Fíli, Dori, Nori, Ori, Óin, Glóin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur — who sing of reclaiming their ancestral home and its treasure under the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug.⁶ Gandalf unveils Thrór’s Map, showing a secret door into the mountain, and proposes that Bilbo serve as the expedition’s “burglar,” with the dwarves offering him one-fourteenth of the treasure.⁶¹⁰

Saved from trolls who are tricked into the sunlight and turned to stone, the company reaches Rivendell, where the elf-lord Elrond reveals more of the map’s secrets.⁶¹³ Crossing the Misty Mountains, they are captured by goblins; in the tunnels Bilbo, separated from the others, finds a mysterious ring and encounters Gollum, with whom he holds a riddle contest for his life.⁶¹⁰ The ring confers invisibility, and Bilbo escapes, rejoins the dwarves, and improves his standing with them before the company is rescued by eagles and sheltered by the shape-shifter Beorn.⁶¹⁰

In the black forest of Mirkwood, Bilbo saves the dwarves first from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves, floating them out in barrels down the river to Lake-town.⁶¹⁰ At the Lonely Mountain the secret door opens, and Bilbo scouts Smaug’s lair, steals a cup, and in conversation spots a gap in the dragon’s armor.⁶ The enraged Smaug attacks Lake-town, where the archer Bard, told of the weak spot by a thrush, kills the dragon with an arrow.⁶¹⁰ Bilbo finds and hides the Arkenstone, the most-treasured heirloom of Thorin’s family, and the dispute over the treasure builds toward the climactic Battle of Five Armies, in which Thorin dies before Bilbo returns home.⁶⁷

Tolkien drew heavily on Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon literature, fields he taught professionally.¹⁵³ One episode, in which Gandalf confuses trolls so that the dawn turns them to stone, mirrors the Edda in which the god Thor does the same to the dwarf Alvíss.³ Reviewing the book, The New York Times praised it as “a glorious account of a magnificent adventure” and “a book with no age limits”.¹⁶

The first publication caused little stir, and the vogue for Tolkien arrived only in 1965, after a cheap pirated edition of The Lord of the Rings appeared.³ The success of The Hobbit prompted that sequel, which further expanded the lore of Middle-earth and introduced concepts central to the later work.⁷⁶ The Hobbit has sold over 100 million copies and remains a seminal work of the fantasy genre.⁷

Over 75 years the book was translated into dozens of languages; its first Russian translation appeared in 1976.³ The first screen adaptation was the 1977 animated feature directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, which won a Peabody Award and was nominated for a Hugo Award, losing to Star Wars.³¹ The Soviet Union attempted the story twice: Leningrad Television broadcast the 1985 teleplay The Fairytale Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, the Hobbit, directed by Vladimir Latyshev and starring Zinoviy Gerdt as the author, Mikhail Danilov as Bilbo, and Igor Dmitriev as Gollum, while a 1991 production titled Treasures Under the Mountain was begun but never finished.³⁵²

Peter Jackson, who had earlier filmed The Lord of the Rings, directed a film adaptation released as a trilogy — An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug, and The Battle of the Five Armies — following Bilbo’s quest to reclaim the dwarf kingdom of Erebor from Smaug.³¹²¹¹ The Hobbit has also been adapted into radio series, stage productions, and video games, among them a 2003 title released by Vivendi Universal.⁷³

The Hobbit The Battle of the Five Armies Official Trailer + Trailer Review : Beyond The TrailerBeyond The Trailer