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Common questions
When was The Hobbit published by George Allen & Unwin?
The Hobbit was published on the 21st of September 1937 by George Allen & Unwin. The initial print run consisted of 1,500 copies that sold out by December of that same year.
Who wrote The Hobbit and what was his profession?
J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit while working as the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford. He held a fellowship at Pembroke College during the early 1930s when he began writing the story.
What is the origin of the name Gandalf in The Hobbit?
The name Gandalf was originally a dwarf-name in Norse literature before Tolkien used it for the wizard character. The names of the dwarves in The Hobbit are derived from northern European literature and the epic poem Beowulf.
How many editions of The Hobbit were published and when was the second edition released?
The second edition of The Hobbit was published in 1951 in both the UK and the US. A third edition followed in 1966 to align the narrative more closely with The Lord of the Rings and to renew US copyright.
What are the estimated global sales figures for The Hobbit since 1937?
Estimated global sales of The Hobbit run between 35 and 100 million copies since 1937. This makes it one of the best-selling books of all time with over 100 million copies sold worldwide.
When was the first motion picture adaptation of The Hobbit released?
The first motion picture adaptation of The Hobbit was Gene Deitch's 1966 short film of cartoon stills. A later animated film based on the book was made by Rankin/Bass in 1977.
The Hobbit
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. This single sentence, scrawled on a blank page by a tired Oxford professor marking school certificates in the early 1930s, would ignite a literary phenomenon that has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The author, J. R. R. Tolkien, was not writing a fairy tale for children at the time, but rather exploring the depths of his own scholarly passion for Germanic philology and Norse mythology. The story began as a private amusement for his children, featuring a race of short, furry-footed people who lived in underground houses and were mainly farmers and gardeners. Yet, what started as a simple bedtime story evolved into a complex narrative that would redefine the genre of fantasy literature. The book was published on the 21st of September 1937 by George Allen & Unwin, with an initial print run of 1,500 copies that sold out by December. The critical acclaim was immediate and widespread, with C. S. Lewis praising the work in The Times for its unique fusion of humor, understanding of children, and scholarly grasp of mythology. The book was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction of 1938, establishing it as a classic in children's literature from its very first release.
The Unexpected Party
The journey begins with a party that was never intended to be a quest. Gandalf, an itinerant wizard, tricks Bilbo Baggins into hosting a gathering for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of twelve dwarves. The dwarves, including Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur, go over their plans to reclaim their ancient home, the Lonely Mountain, and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. Gandalf unveils Thror's map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo should serve as the expedition's burglar. The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, sets off with them. The group travels into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. When they attempt to cross the Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf kills the goblin king and rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game, each posing a riddle until one of them cannot solve it. If Bilbo wins, Gollum will show him the way out of the tunnels, but if he fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility when worn, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase, but the company are saved by eagles. They rest in the house of the skin-changer Beorn.
The company enters the dark forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf, who has other responsibilities. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition reaches the mountain and finds the secret door. The dwarves send a reluctant Bilbo inside to scout the dragon's lair. He steals a great cup and, while conversing with Smaug, spots a gap in the ancient dragon's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruders, flies off to destroy the town. A thrush overhears Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability and tells a Lake-town resident named Bard. Smaug wreaks havoc on the town, until Bard shoots an arrow into the chink in Smaug's armour, killing the dragon. When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, the most-treasured heirloom of Thorin's family, and hides it away. The Wood-elves and Lake-men request compensation for Lake-town's destruction and settlement of old claims on the treasure. When Thorin refuses to give them anything, they besiege the mountain. However, Thorin manages to send a message to his kinfolk in the Iron Hills and reinforces his position. Bilbo slips out and gives the Arkenstone to the besiegers, hoping to head off a war. When they offer the jewel to Thorin in exchange for treasure, Bilbo reveals how they obtained it. Thorin, furious at what he sees as betrayal, banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable when Dain, Thorin's second cousin, arrives with an army of dwarf warriors. Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn, who fights in his bear form and kills the goblin general, do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit roughly a year and a month after he first left. Years later, he writes the story of his adventures.
The Scholar's Pen
Tolkien's creation of The Hobbit was deeply rooted in his academic life and personal history. In the early 1930s, he was pursuing an academic career at the University of Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College. His creative endeavours at this time included letters from Father Christmas to his children, which featured warring gnomes and goblins, and a helpful polar bear, alongside the creation of elven languages and an attendant mythology. The story was inspired by a blank page he found while marking School Certificate papers, where he wrote the opening line. The book was lent to several friends, including C. S. Lewis and a student named Elaine Griffiths. In 1936, Griffiths showed the book to Susan Dagnall, a staff member of the publisher George Allen & Unwin, who was impressed and showed it to Stanley Unwin. Unwin asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it, and Rayner's favourable comments settled the decision to publish. Tolkien was heavily involved in the design and illustration of the entire book, writing 26 letters to the publisher in 1937 alone. He designed the dust jacket, which originally contained several shades of various colours, but the publishers removed the red from the sun to end up with only black, blue, and green ink on white stock. The final design consisted of four colours, with runes on the spine and a sketch of the Misty Mountains stamped along the upper edge. The publisher accepted all of his illustrations, giving the first edition ten black-and-white illustrations plus the two endpaper maps. The illustrated scenes included The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the-Water, The Trolls, The Mountain Path, The Misty Mountains looking West from the Eyrie towards Goblin Gate, Beorn's Hall, Mirkwood, The Elvenking's Gate, Lake Town, The Front Gate and The Hall at Bag-End.
The Mythic Roots
The narrative of The Hobbit draws heavily from Norse mythology and Old English literature, particularly the epic poem Beowulf. Tolkien, a scholar of Beowulf, counted the epic among his most valued sources for the book. He borrowed several elements from Beowulf, including a monstrous, intelligent dragon. Certain descriptions in The Hobbit seem to have been lifted straight out of Beowulf with some minor rewording, such as when the dragon stretches its neck out to sniff for intruders. The names of the dwarves, such as Fili, Kili, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori, Dwalin, Balin, Dain, Nain and Thorin Oakenshield, along with Gandalf which was a dwarf-name in the Norse, are derived from northern European literature. The dwarves' characteristics of being dispossessed of their ancient homeland and living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture are all derived from the medieval image of Jews, whilst their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible. The Dwarvish calendar invented for The Hobbit reflects the Jewish calendar which begins in late autumn. Tolkien's use of descriptive names such as Misty Mountains and Bag End echoes the names used in Old Norse sagas. The names of the dwarf-friendly ravens, such as Roäc, are derived from the Old Norse words for raven and rook. The representation of the dwarves in The Hobbit was influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history. The dwarves' characteristics of being dispossessed of their ancient homeland at the Lonely Mountain, and living among other groups whilst retaining their own culture are all derived from the medieval image of Jews, whilst their warlike nature stems from accounts in the Hebrew Bible.
The War Within
The Hobbit may be read as Tolkien's parable of World War I, with the hero being plucked from his rural home and thrown into a far-off war where traditional types of heroism are shown to be futile. The tale as such explores the theme of heroism. As Janet Brennan Croft notes, Tolkien's literary reaction to war at this time differed from most post-war writers by eschewing irony as a method for distancing events and instead using mythology to mediate his experiences. Similarities to the works of other writers who faced the First World War are seen in The Hobbit, including portraying warfare as anti-pastoral: in The Desolation of Smaug, both the area under the influence of Smaug before his demise and the setting for the Battle of Five Armies later are described as barren, damaged landscapes. The Hobbit makes a warning against repeating the tragedies of the First World War, and Tolkien's attitude as a veteran may well be summed up by Bilbo's comment: Victory after all, I suppose! Well, it seems a very gloomy business. The evolution and maturation of the protagonist, Bilbo Baggins, is central to the story. This journey of maturation, where Bilbo gains a clear sense of identity and confidence in the outside world, may be seen in psychological terms as a Bildungsroman rather than a traditional quest. The Jungian concept of individuation is also reflected through this theme of growing maturity and capability, with the author contrasting Bilbo's personal growth against the arrested development of the dwarves. Thus, while Gandalf exerts a parental influence over Bilbo early on, it is Bilbo who gradually takes over leadership of the party, a fact the dwarves could not bear to acknowledge. The overcoming of greed and selfishness has been seen as the central moral of the story. Whilst greed is a recurring theme in the novel, with many of the episodes stemming from one or more of the characters' simple desire for food or a desire for beautiful objects, such as gold and jewels, it is only by the Arkenstone's influence upon Thorin that greed, and its attendant vices coveting and malignancy, come fully to the fore in the story and provide the moral crux of the tale.
The Revised Ring
In December 1937, the publisher Stanley Unwin asked Tolkien for a sequel. In response, Tolkien provided drafts for The Silmarillion, but the editors rejected them, believing that the public wanted more about hobbits. Tolkien subsequently began work on The New Hobbit, which would eventually become The Lord of the Rings, a course that would not only change the context of the original story, but lead to substantial changes to the character of Gollum. In the first edition of The Hobbit, Gollum willingly bets his magic ring on the outcome of the riddle-game, and he and Bilbo part amicably. In the second edition edits, to reflect the new concept of the One Ring and its corrupting abilities, Tolkien made Gollum more aggressive towards Bilbo and distraught at losing the ring. The encounter ends with Gollum's curse, Thief! Thief, Thief, Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever! This presages Gollum's portrayal in The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien sent this revised version of the chapter Riddles in the Dark to Unwin as an example of the kinds of changes needed to bring the book into conformity with The Lord of the Rings, but he heard nothing back for years. When he was sent galley proofs of a new edition, Tolkien was surprised to find that the sample text had been incorporated. In The Lord of the Rings, the original version of the riddle game is explained as a lie made up by Bilbo under the harmful influence of the Ring, whereas the revised version contains the true account. The revised text became the second edition, published in 1951 in both the UK and the US. Tolkien began a new version in 1960, attempting to adjust the tone of The Hobbit to its sequel. He abandoned the new revision at chapter three after he received criticism that it just wasn't The Hobbit, implying it had lost much of its light-hearted tone and quick pace. After an unauthorized paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings appeared from Ace Books in 1965, Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine Books asked Tolkien to refresh the text of The Hobbit to renew the US copyright. This text became the 1966 third edition. Tolkien took the opportunity to align the narrative more closely to The Lord of the Rings and to cosmological developments from his still unpublished Quenta Silmarillion as it stood at that time. These were mostly small edits; for example, changing the phrase elves that are now called Gnomes from the first, and second editions, on page 63, to High Elves of the West, my kin in the third edition. Tolkien had used gnome in his earlier writing to refer to the second kindred of the High Elves, the Noldor or Deep Elves, thinking that gnome, derived from the Greek gnosis knowledge, was a good name for the wisest of the elves. However, because of the term's association with garden gnomes, Tolkien abandoned the term.
The Enduring Legacy
The Hobbit has been adapted many times for a variety of media, starting with a March 1953 stage production by St. Margaret's School, Edinburgh. The first motion picture adaptation of The Hobbit was Gene Deitch's 1966 short film of cartoon stills. In 1968, BBC Radio 4 broadcast an 8-part radio drama version by Michael Kilgarriff. In 1974, Nicol Williamson recorded an abridged version of the book on 4 long-playing records for the Argo Records label, voicing all the characters. In 1977, Rankin/Bass made an animated film based on the book. In 1978, Romeo Muller won a Peabody Award for his teleplay, though critics described it as execrable and confusing. A children's opera composed by Dean Burry appeared in 2004 in Toronto. Between 2012 and 2014, Peter Jackson's three-part live-action film version appeared on cinema screens. Several computer and video games have been based on the story, including a 1982 game by Beam Software. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Andy Serkis read the whole of The Hobbit to raise money for charity. He then recorded the work again as an audiobook, with cover art by Alan Lee. The book has been translated into over sixty languages, with more than one published version for some languages. While reliable figures are difficult to obtain, estimated global sales of The Hobbit run between 35 and 100 million copies since 1937. This makes it one of the best-selling books of all time. In the UK, The Hobbit has not retreated from the top 5,000 bestselling books measured by Nielsen BookScan since 1998, when the index began, achieving a three-year sales peak rising from 33,084 in 2000 to 142,541 in 2001, 126,771 in 2002 and 61,229 in 2003, ranking it at the 3rd position in Nielsen's Evergreen book list. The enduring popularity of The Hobbit makes early printings of the book attractive collector's items. The first printing of the first English-language edition can sell for between 6,000 and 20,000 pounds at auction, while the price for a signed first edition has reached over 60,000 pounds. The sequel The Lord of the Rings is often claimed to be its greatest legacy, with plots that share the same basic structure in the same sequence, starting at Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins, and ending with the questing party returning home to find it in a deteriorated condition.