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94-651: The Hobbit, or There and Back Again is a children's fantasy novel by the English author J. R. R. Tolkien . It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction. The book is recognized as a classic in children's literature and is one of the best-selling books of all time , with over 100 million copies sold. The Hobbit

188-403: 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

282-524: A non-taboo name for úlfr , the normal Old Norse term for " wolf ". Shippey adds that there is also an Old English verb, awyrgan , meaning both "to condemn [an outcast]" and "to strangle [an outcast to death]"; he adds that a possible further sense is "to worry [a sheep], to bite to death". He writes that Tolkien's word 'Warg' clearly splits the difference between Old Norse and Old English pronunciations, and his concept of them – wolves, but not just wolves, intelligent and malevolent wolves – combines

376-595: A secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "burglar". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself. The group travels into the wild. 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

470-439: A warg is a particularly large and evil kind of wolf that could be ridden by orcs . He derived the name and characteristics of his wargs by combining meanings and myths from Old Norse and Old English . In Norse mythology, a vargr ( anglicised as warg) is a wolf , especially the wolf Fenrir that destroyed the god Odin in the battle of Ragnarök , and the wolves Sköll and Hati , Fenrir's children, who perpetually chase

564-457: A 1955 letter to W. H. Auden , Tolkien recollects that he began The Hobbit one day early in the 1930s. While he was marking School Certificate papers, he found a blank page. Suddenly inspired, he wrote the words, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." By late 1932 he had finished the story and then lent the manuscript to several friends, including C. S. Lewis and a student of Tolkien's named Elaine Griffiths. In 1936, when Griffiths

658-481: A binding, but Tolkien objected to several elements. Through several iterations, the final design ended up as mostly the author's. The spine shows runes: two " þ " ( Thráin and Thrór) runes and one " d " (door). The front and back covers were mirror images of each other, with an elongated dragon characteristic of Tolkien's style stamped along the lower edge, and with a sketch of the Misty Mountains stamped along

752-516: A boy by Samuel Rutherford Crockett 's historical novel The Black Douglas and of basing the Necromancer— Sauron —on its villain, Gilles de Retz . Incidents in both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings are similar in narrative and style to the novel, and its overall style and imagery have been suggested as having had an influence on Tolkien. The Tolkien scholar Mark T. Hooker has catalogued

846-533: A company of thirteen dwarves . Thorin Oakenshield is the proud, pompous head of the company of dwarves and heir to the destroyed dwarvish kingdom under the Lonely Mountain . Smaug is a dragon who long ago pillaged the dwarvish kingdom of Thorin's grandfather and sleeps upon the vast treasure. The plot involves a host of other characters of varying importance, such as the twelve other dwarves of

940-420: A cup from the dragon's hoard, rousing him to wrath—an incident directly mirroring Beowulf and an action entirely determined by traditional narrative patterns. As Tolkien wrote, "The episode of the theft arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances. It is difficult to think of any other way of conducting the story at this point. I fancy the author of Beowulf would say much the same." The name of

1034-399: A darker, realistic fantasy that led to a corresponding trend in a new young adult market. The protagonists are usually children or teens who have unique abilities, gifts, possessions or even allies that allow them to face powerful adversaries. Harry Potter is a powerful young wizard, one of the children of The Dark Is Rising series is an immature Old One with magical abilities, and in

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1128-508: A handful of children's books that have been accepted into mainstream literature, alongside Jostein Gaarder 's Sophie's World (1991) and J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter series (1997–2007). Tolkien intended The Hobbit as a "fairy-story" and wrote it in a tone suited to addressing children; he said later that the book was not specifically written for children, but had rather been created out of his interest in mythology and legend. Many of

1222-649: A lengthy series of parallels between The Hobbit and Jules Verne 's 1864 Journey to the Center of the Earth . These include, among other things, a hidden runic message and a celestial alignment that direct the adventurers to the goals of their quests. Tolkien's portrayal of goblins in The Hobbit was particularly influenced by George MacDonald 's The Princess and the Goblin . However, MacDonald's influence on Tolkien

1316-494: A linguistic shifting in level from the inanimate to animate. Tolkien saw the idea of animism as closely linked to the emergence of human language and myth: "...The first men to talk of 'trees and stars' saw things very differently. To them, the world was alive with mythological beings... To them the whole of creation was 'myth-woven and elf-patterned'." As in plot and setting, Tolkien brings his literary theories to bear in forming characters and their interactions. He portrays Bilbo as

1410-533: A malevolent wolf-like race . They are usually in league with the Orcs whom they permit to ride on their backs into battle, sharing any spoils. In The Hobbit , they can speak: they plan their part in "a great goblin-raid" on the woodmen's villages. Tolkien's wargs influenced the ten-year-old Rayner Unwin to write a positive review of The Hobbit , with the words "Bilbo Baggins was a hobbit who lived in his hobbit hole and never went for adventures, at last Gandalf

1504-507: A man who can assume bear form; and Bard the Bowman , a grim but honourable archer of Lake-town . Gandalf tricks Bilbo Baggins into hosting a party for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of twelve dwarves (Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur), who go over their plans to reclaim their ancient home, Lonely Mountain , and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug . Gandalf unveils Thrór's map showing

1598-441: A modern anachronism exploring an essentially antique world. Bilbo is able to negotiate and interact within this antique world because language and tradition make connections between the two worlds. For example, Gollum 's riddles are taken from old historical sources, while those of Bilbo come from modern nursery books. It is the form of the riddle game, familiar to both, which allows Gollum and Bilbo to engage each other, rather than

1692-527: A new type of monster or threat as Bilbo progresses through the landscape. Bilbo gains a new level of maturity, competence, and wisdom by accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey, and adventurous sides of his nature and applying his wits and common sense. The story reaches its climax in the Battle of Five Armies, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict. Personal growth and forms of heroism are central themes of

1786-438: A part. The publisher was encouraged by the book's critical and financial success and, therefore, requested a sequel. As Tolkien's work progressed on its successor , The Lord of the Rings , he made retrospective accommodations for it in The Hobbit . These few but significant changes were integrated into the second edition. Further editions followed with minor emendations, including those reflecting Tolkien's changing concept of

1880-460: A person), see what they are seeing, and control their actions. In Wen Spencer 's Tinker (Elfhome) series , wargs are large magically engineered wolves. Similar Tolkien-based creatures appear in a number of fantasy video games, including The Lord of the Rings Online , Age of Conan , and World of Warcraft , both as four-legged monsters, and as a race of anthropomorphic werewolves,

1974-665: A sense of humour. Tolkien achieves balance of humour and danger through other means as well, as seen in the foolishness and Cockney dialect of the trolls and in the drunkenness of the elven captors. The general form—that of a journey into strange lands, told in a light-hearted mood and interspersed with songs—may be following the model of The Icelandic Journals by William Morris , an important literary influence on Tolkien. Tolkien's works show many influences from Norse mythology , reflecting his lifelong passion for those stories and his academic interest in Germanic philology . The Hobbit

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2068-694: A veteran may well be summed up by Bilbo's comment: "Victory after all, I suppose! Well, it seems a very gloomy business." On its publication in October 1937, The Hobbit was met with almost unanimously favourable reviews from publications both in the UK and the US, including The Times , Catholic World and New York Post . C. S. Lewis , friend of Tolkien (and later author of The Chronicles of Narnia between 1949 and 1954), writing in The Times reports: The truth

2162-472: A wolf. To Baldr 's funeral, the jötunn Hyrrokkin arrived on a wolf. The medievalist and Tolkien scholar Marjorie Burns writes that Tolkien uses the fact that wolves were among the Norse god Odin 's war beasts "in a particularly innovative way". Odin kept two wolves, Freki and Geri, their names both meaning "Greedy"; and in the final battle that destroys the world, Ragnarök , Odin is killed and eaten by

2256-431: Is "ancient time between the age of Faerie and the dominion of men" in an unnamed fantasy world . The world is shown on the endpaper map as "Western Lands" westward and " Wilderland " as the east. Originally this world was self-contained, but as Tolkien began work on The Lord of the Rings , he decided these stories could fit into the legendarium he had been working on privately for decades. The Hobbit and The Lord of

2350-475: Is a motif explicitly borrowed from Morris. The Tolkien scholar Marjorie Burns writes that Bilbo's character and adventures match many details of Morris's expedition in Iceland. She comments, for instance, that the humorous drawings of Morris riding through the wilds of Iceland by his friend the artist Edward Burne-Jones can serve well as models for Bilbo on his adventures. Tolkien wrote of being impressed as

2444-473: Is commonly cited as the creator of modern children's fantasy. The golden age of children's fantasy, in scholars' view, occurred in the mid-20th century when the genre was influenced by J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Hobbit and C. S. Lewis 's The Chronicles of Narnia . In the vein of Narnia , the post-war period saw rising stakes and manifestations of evil in the works of Susan Cooper and Alan Garner . Tolkien's Middle-earth led to mythopoeic fantasy in

2538-572: Is illustrated with many black-and-white drawings taken from translations of the story into some 25 languages. Tolkien's use of runes, both as decorative devices and as magical signs within the story, has been cited as a major cause for the popularization of runes within " New Age " and esoteric literature, stemming from Tolkien's popularity with the elements of counter-culture in the 1970s. The Hobbit takes cues from narrative models of children's literature , as shown by its omniscient narrator and characters that young children can relate to, such as

2632-525: Is no exception to this; the work shows influences from northern European literature, myths and languages, especially from the Poetic Edda and the Prose Edda . Examples include the names of the dwarves, 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. But while their names are Norse,

2726-502: Is set in Middle-earth and follows home-loving Bilbo Baggins , the hobbit of the title, who joins the wizard Gandalf and the thirteen dwarves of Thorin's Company , on a quest to reclaim the dwarves' home and treasure from the dragon Smaug . Bilbo's journey takes him from his peaceful rural surroundings into more sinister territory. The story is told in the form of a picaresque or episodic quest ; several chapters introduce

2820-402: Is that in this book a number of good things, never before united, have come together: a fund of humour, an understanding of children, and a happy fusion of the scholar's with the poet's grasp of mythology... The professor has the air of inventing nothing. He has studied trolls and dragons at first hand and describes them with that fidelity that is worth oceans of glib "originality." Lewis compares

2914-562: The Ancrene Wisse (which Tolkien had written on in 1929), and a Christian understanding of Beowulf . Shippey comments that Bilbo is nothing like a king, and that Chance's talk of "types" just muddies the waters, though he agrees with her that there are "self-images of Tolkien" throughout his fiction; and she is right, too, in seeing Middle-earth as a balance between creativity and scholarship, "Germanic past and Christian present". The overcoming of greed and selfishness has been seen as

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3008-529: The His Dark Materials series the children have magical items and animal allies. The plot frequently incorporates a bildungsroman . In the earlier part of the 20th century, C. S. Lewis noted that fantasy was more accepted in juvenile literature, and therefore a writer interested in fantasy often wrote in it to find an audience. Warg (Middle-earth) In the philologist and fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien 's Middle-earth fiction,

3102-658: The Victorian era , fairytales were perceived as immoral and ill-suited for children's minds. A market for children's fantasy was established in Britain in the 19th century, leading to works such as Lewis Carroll 's Alice in Wonderland and Edith Nesbit 's Five Children series ; the genre also developed in America, exemplified by L. Frank Baum 's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Of the authors of this period, Nesbit

3196-436: The nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle . His creative endeavours at this time also included letters from Father Christmas to his children—illustrated manuscripts that featured warring gnomes and goblins , and a helpful polar bear —alongside the creation of elven languages and an attendant mythology, including The Book of Lost Tales , which he had been creating since 1917. These works all saw posthumous publication. In

3290-464: The sentient eagles , giant spiders , Smaug the dragon, ravens and thrushes. Tolkien writes about their actions using verbs like "[to] plan" and "[to] guard", implying in Hartley's view that the monstrous wargs are "more than mere beasts", but he denies that they "possess autonomous wills". T. A. Leederman calls Tolkien's wargs "a species of semi-intelligent but evil-aligned mount wolves ... on whom

3384-526: The " Doctor Dolittle Theme" in The History of The Hobbit , and cites the multitude of talking animals as indicative of this theme. These sapient beings include ravens, a thrush, spiders and the dragon Smaug, alongside the anthropomorphic goblins and elves. Patrick Curry notes that animism is also found in Tolkien's other works, and mentions the "roots of mountains" and "feet of trees" in The Hobbit as

3478-474: The 1970s, from authors such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Robin McKinley . Another influential writer of this period was Diana Wynne Jones , who wrote both medievalist and realist fantasies. In the late 1990s, J. K. Rowling 's Harry Potter led to a commercial boom in the genre, reviving older authors' careers and spawning many imitators. A concurrent success is Philip Pullman 's His Dark Materials ,

3572-625: The Early Sun in His Eyes , Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves and Conversation with Smaug , which features a dwarvish curse written in Tolkien's invented script Tengwar , and signed with two "þ" ("Th") runes. The additional illustrations proved so appealing that George Allen & Unwin adopted the colour plates as well for their second printing, with exception of Bilbo Woke Up with

3666-467: The Early Sun in His Eyes . Different editions have been illustrated in diverse ways. Many follow the original scheme at least loosely, but many others are illustrated by other artists, especially the many translated editions. Some cheaper editions, particularly paperback, are not illustrated except with the maps. "The Children's Book Club" edition of 1942 includes the black-and-white pictures but no maps, an anomaly. Douglas Anderson 's The Annotated Hobbit

3760-555: The Old Norse words for "raven" and "rook", but their peaceful characters are unlike the typical carrion birds from Old Norse and Old English literature. Tolkien is not simply skimming historical sources for effect: the juxtaposition of old and new styles of expression is seen by the Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey as one of the major themes explored in The Hobbit . Maps figure in both saga literature and The Hobbit . Themes from Old English literature , especially from Beowulf , shape

3854-755: The Rings became the end of the " Third Age " of Middle Earth within Arda . Eventually those tales of the earlier periods became published as The Silmarillion and other posthumous works. Tolkien's correspondence and publisher's records show that he was involved in the design and illustration of the entire book. All elements were the subject of considerable correspondence and fussing over by Tolkien. Rayner Unwin, in his publishing memoir, comments: "In 1937 alone Tolkien wrote 26 letters to George Allen & Unwin... detailed, fluent, often pungent, but infinitely polite and exasperatingly precise... I doubt any author today, however famous, would get such scrupulous attention." Even

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3948-469: The Sun and Moon. In Old English , a wearh is an outcast who may be strangled to death. Through Tolkien's influence , wargs have featured in fantasy books by authors including George R. R. Martin , and in media such as video games and role-playing games . The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey states that Tolkien's spelling "warg" is a cross of Old Norse vargr and Old English wearh . He notes that

4042-656: The ancient world which Bilbo stepped into. Tolkien, a scholar of Beowulf , counted the epic among his "most valued sources" for The Hobbit . Tolkien was one of the first critics to treat Beowulf as a literary work with value beyond the merely historical, with his 1936 lecture Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics . Tolkien 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

4136-669: The book to Alice in Wonderland in that both children and adults may find different things to enjoy in it, and places it alongside Flatland , Phantastes , and The Wind in the Willows . W. H. Auden , in his review of the sequel The Fellowship of the Ring , calls The Hobbit "one of the best children's stories of this century". Auden was later to correspond with Tolkien, and they became friends. Children%27s fantasy The genre has roots in folk tales such as Aesop's Fables that were not originally intended for children: before

4230-486: 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 (be it trolls eating dwarves or dwarves eating Wood-elf fare) 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

4324-472: The characters of the dwarves are based on fairy tales such as Snow White and Snow-White and Rose-Red as collected by the Brothers Grimm , while the latter tale may have influenced the character of Beorn. 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

4418-403: The company ; two types of elves : both puckish and more serious warrior types ; Men ; man-eating trolls ; boulder-throwing giants; evil cave-dwelling goblins ; forest-dwelling giant spiders who can speak; immense and heroic eagles who also speak; evil wolves, or Wargs , who are allied with the goblins; Elrond the sage; Gollum , a strange creature inhabiting an underground lake; Beorn ,

4512-457: The content of the riddles themselves. This idea of a superficial contrast between characters' individual linguistic style, tone and sphere of interest, leading to an understanding of the deeper unity between the ancient and modern, is a recurring theme in The Hobbit . Smaug is the main antagonist. In many ways the Smaug episode reflects and references the dragon of Beowulf , and Tolkien uses

4606-582: The cup-thief and the dragon's intellect and personality. Named swords of renown, adorned with runes, similarly have Old English connections. In using his elf-sword, Bilbo finally takes his first independent heroic action. By his naming the sword " Sting " we see Bilbo's acceptance of the kinds of cultural and linguistic practices found in Beowulf , signifying his entrance into the ancient world in which he found himself. This progression culminates in Bilbo stealing

4700-428: The development of high fantasy, and further credits the 1960s paperback debuts of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as essential to the creation of a mass market for fiction of this kind as well as the fantasy genre's current status. Tolkien's prose is unpretentious and straightforward, taking as given the existence of his imaginary world and describing its details in a matter-of-fact way, while often introducing

4794-545: The dragon stretches its neck out to sniff for intruders. Likewise, Tolkien's descriptions of the lair as accessed through a secret passage mirror those in Beowulf . Other specific plot elements and features in The Hobbit that show similarities to Beowulf include the title of thief , as Bilbo is called by Gollum and later by Smaug, and Smaug's personality, which leads to the destruction of Lake-town. Tolkien refines parts of Beowulf 's plot that he appears to have found less than satisfactorily described, such as details about

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4888-540: 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

4982-450: The dwarves could not bear to acknowledge. The analogue of the " underworld " and the hero returning from it with a boon (such as the ring, or Elvish blades) that benefits his society is seen to fit the mythic archetypes regarding initiation and male coming-of-age as described by Joseph Campbell . Chance compares the development and growth of Bilbo against other characters to the concepts of just kingship versus sinful kingship derived from

5076-470: The enormous battering ram named Grond which destroys the main gate of Minas Tirith . On the other side, the benevolent Wizard Gandalf leads the fight against the wargs in The Hobbit , using his ability to create fire, and understands their language. In The Fellowship of the Ring , Gandalf again uses magic and fire to drive off a great wolf, "The Hound of Sauron", and his wolf-pack; Burns writes that

5170-474: The episode to put into practice some of the ground-breaking literary theories he had developed about the Old English poem in its portrayal of the dragon as having bestial intelligence. Tolkien greatly prefers this motif over the later medieval trend of using the dragon as a symbolic or allegorical figure, such as in the legend of St. George . Smaug the dragon with his golden hoard may be seen as an example of

5264-683: The extra cost. Thus encouraged, Tolkien supplied a second batch of illustrations. The publisher accepted all of these as well, giving the first edition ten black-and-white illustrations plus the two endpaper maps. The illustrated scenes were: 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 . All but one of

5358-453: The figure of the trickster occurs in every age, whether in sacred rites or picaresque stories. Jaume Albero Poveda similarly calls the "comical episodes" like the riddle game between Bilbo and Gollum "typical of the picaresque novel". Tolkien wished to imitate the prose and poetry romances of the 19th-century Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris in style and approach. The Desolation of Smaug, portraying dragons as detrimental to landscape,

5452-450: The final design of two maps as endpapers, Thror's map , and the Map of Wilderland (see Rhovanion ), both printed in black and red on the paper's cream background. Originally Allen & Unwin planned to illustrate the book only with the endpaper maps, but Tolkien's first tendered sketches so charmed the publisher's staff that they opted to include them without raising the book's price despite

5546-547: The fore in the story and provide the moral crux of the tale. Bilbo steals the Arkenstone—a most ancient relic of the dwarves—and attempts to ransom it to Thorin for peace. However, Thorin turns on the Hobbit as a traitor, disregarding all the promises and "at your services" he had previously bestowed. In the end Bilbo gives up the precious stone and most of his share of the treasure to help those in greater need. Tolkien also explores

5640-406: The general tone is kept light-hearted, being interspersed with songs and humour. One example of the use of song to maintain tone is when Thorin and Company are kidnapped by goblins, who, when marching them into the underworld, sing: Clap! Snap! the black crack! Grip, grab! Pinch, nab! And down down to Goblin-town You go, my lad! This onomatopoeic singing undercuts the dangerous scene with

5734-467: The gigantic wolf Fenrir. Thus, Burns points out, wolves were both associates of Odin, and his mortal enemy. She argues that Tolkien made use of both relationships in The Lord of the Rings . In her view, both the dark lord Sauron and the evil Wizard Saruman embody "attributes of a negative Odin". She points out that Saruman has wargs in his army, while Sauron uses "the likeness of a ravening wolf" for

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5828-400: 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

5922-422: 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

6016-500: The illustrations were a full page, and one, the Mirkwood illustration, required a separate plate. Satisfied with his skills, the publishers asked Tolkien to design a dust jacket. This project, too, became the subject of many iterations and much correspondence, with Tolkien always writing disparagingly of his own ability to draw. The runic inscription around the edges of the illustration are a phonetic transliteration of English, giving

6110-546: The initial reviews refer to the work as a fairy story. However, according to Jack Zipes writing in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales , Bilbo is an atypical character for a fairy tale. The work is much longer than Tolkien's ideal proposed in his essay On Fairy-Stories . Many fairy tale motifs, such as the repetition of similar events seen in the dwarves' arrival at Bilbo's and Beorn's homes, and folklore themes, such as trolls turning to stone, are to be found in

6204-510: The intruders, flies off to destroy the town. A thrush overhears Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability and tells Lake-town resident 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

6298-408: The maps, of which Tolkien originally proposed five, were considered and debated. He wished Thror's Map to be tipped in (that is, glued in after the book has been bound) at first mention in the text, and with the moon letter runes on the reverse so they could be seen when held up to the light. In the end the cost, as well as the shading of the maps, which would be difficult to reproduce, resulted in

6392-577: 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. And although Tolkien denied that he used allegory , the dwarves taking Bilbo out of his complacent existence has been seen as an eloquent metaphor for the "impoverishment of Western society without Jews." The scholar of literature James L. Hodge describes

6486-603: The motif of jewels that inspire intense greed that corrupts those who covet them in the Silmarillion , and there are connections between the words "Arkenstone" and " Silmaril " in Tolkien's invented etymologies. The Hobbit employs themes of animism . An important concept in anthropology and child development , animism is the idea that all things—including inanimate objects and natural events, such as storms or purses, as well as living things like animals and plants—possess human-like intelligence. John D. Rateliff calls this

6580-488: The narrative flow with asides (a device common to both children's and Anglo-Saxon literature), has his own linguistic style separate from those of the main characters. The basic form of the story is that of a quest , told in episodes. For the most part of the book, each chapter introduces a different denizen of the Wilderland, some helpful and friendly towards the protagonists, and others threatening or dangerous. However

6674-554: The narrative voice addressing the reader directly, the narrative voice contributes significantly to the success of the novel. The scholar Lois R. Kuznets comments that the "obtrusive narrator" is part of a standard "rhetoric of childhood"; C. W. Sullivan III adds that Tolkien may have taken the idea of an intrusive narrator from the medieval texts Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . Emer O'Sullivan, in her Comparative Children's Literature , notes The Hobbit as one of

6768-449: The new and fantastic in an almost casual manner. This down-to-earth style, also found in later fantasy such as Richard Adams ' Watership Down and Peter Beagle 's The Last Unicorn , accepts readers into the fictional world , rather than cajoling or attempting to convince them of its reality. While The Hobbit is written in a simple, friendly language, each of its characters has a unique voice. The narrator, who occasionally interrupts

6862-475: The orcs rode into battle". He notes that they may have been derived, in the fiction, from First Age werewolves like Carcharoth , with their own "proto-language". In George R. R. Martin 's series of epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire , and the series' television adaptation, Game of Thrones , Wargs are skinchangers who can enter the mind of animals (and in Bran Stark 's case with Hodor ,

6956-411: The ring, which confers invisibility , 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

7050-470: The small, food-obsessed, and morally ambiguous Bilbo. The text emphasizes the relationship between time and narrative progress and it openly distinguishes "safe" from "dangerous" in its geography. Both are key elements of works intended for children, as is the "home-away-home" (or there and back again ) plot structure typical of the Bildungsroman . While Tolkien later claimed to dislike the aspect of

7144-434: The story as picaresque , a genre of fiction in which a hero relies on his wits to survive a series of risky episodes. Hodge further likens Bilbo's admittedly unheroic business of burglary to the trickster role of some pagan gods and mythical figures: Hermes steals cattle from Apollo , Prometheus and Coyote steal fire, Odin steals the mead of poetry , and so on. Hodge quotes the psychiatrist Carl Jung as saying that

7238-505: The story of his adventures . In the early 1930s Tolkien was pursuing an academic career at Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon , with a fellowship at Pembroke College . Several of his poems had been published in magazines and small collections, including Goblin Feet and The Cat and the Fiddle: A Nursery Rhyme Undone and its Scandalous Secret Unlocked , a reworking of

7332-400: The story, along with motifs of warfare. These themes have led critics to view Tolkien's own experiences during World War I as instrumental in shaping the story. The author's scholarly knowledge of Germanic philology and interest in mythology and fairy tales are often noted as influences, but more recent fiction including adventure stories and the works of William Morris also played

7426-491: The story. The book is popularly called (and often marketed as) a fantasy novel , but like Peter Pan and Wendy by J. M. Barrie and The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald , both of which influenced Tolkien and contain fantasy elements, it is primarily identified as being children's literature. The two genres are not mutually exclusive, so some definitions of high fantasy include works for children by authors such as L. Frank Baum and Lloyd Alexander alongside

7520-437: 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

7614-418: The title of the book and details of the author and publisher. The original jacket design contained several shades of various colours, but Tolkien redrew it several times using fewer colours each time. His final design consisted of four colours. The publishers, mindful of the cost, removed the red from the sun to end up with only black, blue, and green ink on white stock. The publisher's production staff designed

7708-543: The traditional relationship between evil and metallurgy as collated in the depiction of Pandæmonium with its "Belched fire and rolling smoke" in John Milton 's Paradise Lost . Of all the characters, Smaug's speech is the most modern, using idioms such as "Don't let your imagination run away with you!" Just as Tolkien's literary theories have been seen to influence the tale, so have Tolkien's experiences. The Hobbit may be read as Tolkien's parable of World War I with

7802-794: 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 Dáin Ironfoot , 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

7896-563: The two ancient opinions. In Norse mythology , wargs are in particular the mythological wolves Fenrir , Sköll and Hati . Sköll and Hati are wolves, one going after the Sun, the other after the Moon. Wolves served as mounts for more or less dangerous humanoid creatures. For instance, Gunnr 's horse was a kenning for "wolf" on the Rök runestone . In the Lay of Hyndla , the eponymous seeress rides

7990-545: The upper edge. Once illustrations were approved for the book, Tolkien proposed colour plates as well. The publisher would not relent on this, so Tolkien pinned his hopes on the American edition to be published about six months later. Houghton Mifflin rewarded these hopes with the replacement of the frontispiece ( The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water ) in colour and the addition of new colour plates: Rivendell , Bilbo Woke Up with

8084-547: The wizard Radagast is taken from the name of the Slavic deity Radogost . 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

8178-477: The wizard and his dwarves persuaded him to go. He had a very ex[c]iting time fighting goblins and wargs." The review led his father, Stanley Unwin , to publish the book, still doubting its likely commercial success. Peter Jackson 's film adaptations of Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings extend the role of wargs as mounts for Orcs, battling the horse- riders of Rohan . The critic Gregory Hartley treats wargs as "personified animals", along with

8272-689: The wolves' attempt "to devour Gandalf hints at Odin's fate", recalling the myth of Fenrir and Odin. ... and in the middle of the circle was a great grey wolf. He spoke to them in the dreadful language of the Wargs. Gandalf understood it. Bilbo did not, but it sounded terrible to him, and as if all their talk was about cruel and wicked things, as it was. Every now and then all the Wargs in the circle would answer their grey chief all together ... Tolkien's description of wargs in The Hobbit In J. R. R. Tolkien 's books about Middle-earth , wargs are

8366-555: The words embody a shift in meaning from "wolf" to "outlaw": vargr carries both meanings, while wearh means "outcast" or "outlaw", but has lost the sense of "wolf". In Old Norse, vargr is derived from the Proto-Germanic root reconstructed as * wargaz , ultimately derived from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root reconstructed as *werg̑ʰ- "destroy". Vargr (compare modern Swedish varg "wolf") arose as

8460-416: The works of Gene Wolfe and Jonathan Swift , which are more often considered adult literature. The Hobbit has been called "the most popular of all twentieth-century fantasies written for children". Jane Chance , however, considers the book to be a children's novel only in the sense that it appeals to the child in an adult reader. Sullivan credits the first publication of The Hobbit as an important step in

8554-475: The works of other writers who faced the Great 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 World War I, and Tolkien's attitude as

8648-532: The world into which Bilbo stumbled. The work has never been out of print. Its ongoing legacy encompasses many adaptations for stage, screen, radio, board games , and video games. Several of these adaptations have received critical recognition on their own merits. Bilbo Baggins , the protagonist, is a respectable, reserved and well-to-do hobbit —a race resembling short humans with furry, leathery feet who live in underground houses and are mainly farmers and gardeners. Gandalf , an itinerant wizard , introduces Bilbo to

8742-415: Was more profound than the shaping of individual characters and episodes; his works helped Tolkien form his whole thinking on the role of fantasy within his Christian faith . 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

8836-553: Was visited in Oxford by Susan Dagnall, a staff member of the publisher George Allen & Unwin , she is reported to have either lent Dagnall the book or suggested she borrow it from Tolkien. In any event, Dagnall was impressed by it, and showed the book to Stanley Unwin , who then asked his 10-year-old son Rayner to review it. Rayner's favourable comments settled Allen & Unwin's decision to publish Tolkien's book. The setting of The Hobbit , as described on its original dust jacket,

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