The Hobbit

History and context

Bilbo leaves his home at Gandalf’s prompting and joins the Dwarves’ attempt to recover Erebor from Smaug. The journey moves through encounters with trolls, Elves, goblins, Gollum, Eagles, Beorn and the inhabitants of the woodland realm and Lake-town. Its central movement is not simply from danger to treasure. Bilbo learns to act independently of the company’s expectations, and the recovery of the treasure creates a new conflict that courage alone cannot settle. The Arkenstone episode brings loyalty, possession and the prevention of war into direct tension. Bard, rather than Bilbo or Thorin, kills Smaug. The resulting crisis culminates in the Battle of Five Armies. Bilbo returns to the Shire changed, but retains affection for the domestic world with which the story began.

The principal characters include Bilbo, Gandalf, Thorin, Gollum, Smaug, Bard and Beorn. The Elvenking of this narrative is the ruler later identified as Thranduil in the larger history. Elrond and Rivendell connect the journey to older Elven traditions, while the swords recovered from the trolls point back to Gondolin. Readers do not need a complete knowledge of the First Age to follow the story, but those connections become more significant on a later rereading.

Literary context and distinctions

The novel’s narrator is more directly conversational than the narrative voice of much of The Lord of the Rings. Humour and domestic observation coexist with increasing danger, grief and moral complexity. The book can be read as a complete journey in its own right, rather than merely as a storehouse of preliminary information for the later novel. Bilbo’s mercy towards Gollum and his resistance to the company’s fixation on possession make it particularly useful for reading Tolkien’s treatment of courage and judgement.

The book also has a publication history. Tolkien revised the encounter with Gollum for the second edition, published in 1951, to bring it into closer relationship with the developing account of the One Ring. The first-edition version is therefore important evidence for the history of composition, but it should not be silently substituted for the revised narrative when explaining events in The Lord of the Rings. The later Prologue presents an in-world explanation involving Bilbo’s initial account.

For a first reading, begin with the story and allow the unfamiliar names to acquire meaning through the journey. Then read The Lord of the Rings before returning to the older histories in The Silmarillion. A more advanced reading can compare the early and revised Gollum chapters, follow references to Gondolin and consider how the later mythology changes the apparent significance of a children’s adventure. Film adaptations enlarge, rearrange and add material; a scene’s presence on screen does not establish that it occurs in the book.

Primary references

• J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, especially “Riddles in the Dark”, “Fire and Water”, “A Thief in the Night” and “The Last Stage”.
• The Lord of the Rings, Prologue, “Of the Finding of the Ring”.
• John D. Rateliff, “The Hobbit”, The Tolkien Estate: https://www.tolkienestate.com/writing/john-d-rateliff-the-hobbit/
• John D. Rateliff, The History of The Hobbit, for composition and revision.