For other uses, see Hobbit (disambiguation) and There and Back Again (disambiguation).
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in a time "Between the Dawn of Færie and the Dominion of Men", [1] The Hobbit
follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins to win a share of the treasure guarded by the dragon, Smaug. It was published on 21 September 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 remains popular and is recognised as a classic children's book.
Bilbo's journey takes him from light-hearted, rural surroundings into darker, deeper territory. [2] The story is told in the form of an episodic quest, and most chapters introduce a specific creature, or type of creature, of Tolkien's Wilderland. By accepting the disreputable, romantic, fey and adventurous side of his nature (the "Tookish" side) and applying his wits and common sense, Bilbo develops a new level of maturity, competence and wisdom. [3]
The final chapters deal with the climactic Battle of Five Armies
, where many of the characters and creatures from earlier chapters re-emerge to engage in conflict. Critics have cited Tolkien's own experiences and the themes of other writers who fought in World War I, along with the author's professional knowledge of Anglo-Saxon literature and personal interest in fairy tales, as the chief influences.
Due to the book's critical and financial success, a sequel was requested by Tolkien's publishers. As work on the The Lord of the Rings
progressed, Tolkien made retrospective accommodations for it in one chapter of 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 the world into which Bilbo stumbled.
The work has never been out of print since the paper shortages of the Second World War. Its ongoing legacy encompasses many adaptations for stage, screen, radio, and gaming, both board and video games. Some of these adaptations have received critical recognition of their own, including a video game that won the Golden Joystick Award, a scenario of a war game that won an Origins Award, and an animated picture nominated for a Hugo Award.
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THE HOBBIT TICKETS
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Characters
- Bilbo Baggins, the titular protagonist, a respectable, conservative hobbit. While travelling, Bilbo often refers to the contents of his larder at home and wishes he had more food. Until he finds the magic ring, he takes on tasks set out for him only reluctantly. Bilbo's manner is informal and his speech colloquial and modern. The story follows an arc of Bilbo's growing capability, independence of action and sense of community.
- Gandalf, an itinerant wizard who introduces Bilbo to a company of thirteen dwarves, later disappearing and re-appearing at key points in the story. While Gandalf is wise, his knowledge is limited, and he is out to serve his own purposes while only incidentally assisting the dwarves.
- Thorin Oakenshield, pompous head of the company of dwarves and heir to a dwarven kingdom under the Lonely Mountain. Thorin's leadership is inept, often relying on Gandalf or Bilbo to get him out of trouble, but he proves himself a mighty warrior.
- Smaug, the main antagonist. He is a dragon who long ago pillaged the dwarven kingdom of Thorin's grandfather and sleeps upon the vast treasure. In many ways the Smaug episode reflects and references the dragon of Beowulf, and Tolkien uses the episode to put into practice some of the ground-breaking literary theories he had developed about the Anglo-Saxon poem and its portrayal of the dragon as having bestial intelligence rather than being of purely symbolic value. [4] Smaug the dragon and his golden hoard may be seen as a symbol of the traditional relationship between evil and metallurgy as collated in the depiction of Pandæmonium with its "Belched fire and rolling smoke" in Milton's Paradise Lost
. [5] Of all the characters, Smaug's speech is the most modern, using idioms such as "Don't let your imagination run away with you!"
The plot involves a host of other characters of varying importance, such as the twelve other dwarves of the company; two types of
elves, both
puckish and more serious
warrior types;
men (humans);
trolls with "
cockney" accents; cave-dwelling
goblins; forest-dwelling giant spiders who can speak; immense and heroic
eagles who also speak; evil
wolves who are allied with the goblins;
Elrond the sage;
Gollum, a mysterious creature inhabiting an underground lake;
Beorn, a man who can assume bear form; and
Bard the Bowman, a heroic archer of
Lake-town.
Plot
Gandalf tricks Bilbo into hosting a party for Thorin's band of dwarves, who sing of reclaiming the
Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the
Dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils a map showing 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 travel into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to
Rivendell. While there, Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. Passing over the
Misty Mountains, they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblin tunnels. Lost and disoriented, he stumbles across
a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles with deadly stakes. With the help of the ring, which confers
invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, raising his reputation with them. The goblins and
Wargs give chase and the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of
Beorn, the skin-changer.
The company enter the black forest of
Mirkwood without Gandalf. 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 travel to the Mountain and find the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and learning of a weakness in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A noble
thrush who overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability reports it to Bard the Bowman, who slays the Dragon.
When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the
Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's dynasty, and steals it. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the Mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the north, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is intransigent. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable.
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 do they win the climactic
Battle of Five Armies. Thorin, mortally wounded, lives long enough to part from Bilbo as a friend. The treasure is divided fairly, but, having no need or desire for it, Bilbo refuses most of his contracted share. Nevertheless, he returns home wealthy.
Concept and creation
Background
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. He had had two poems published in small collections:
Goblin Feet
[6] and
The Cat and the Fiddle: A Nursery Rhyme Undone and its Scandalous Secret Unlocked
,
[7] a reworking of 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 development of
elven languages and an
attendant mythology, which he had been developing since 1917. These works all saw posthumous publication.
[8]
In a 1955 letter to
W. H. Auden, Tolkien recollects that he began work on
The Hobbit
one day early in the 1930s, when 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 [9] and a student of Tolkien's named Elaine Griffiths.
[10] In 1936, when Griffiths 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.
[11] In any event, Miss Dagnall was impressed by it, and showed the book to
Stanley Unwin, who then asked his 10-year-old son
Rayner to review it. After Rayner wrote a short piece about the book, it was published by Allen & Unwin.
[12]
Tolkien, an accomplished Beowulf scholar, claims this poem to be among his “most valued sources” in writing The Hobbit.
[13] Textual similarities between each scene of conflict with the dragon confirm Tolkien’s statement that “the episode of theft arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances.” In each tale, the conflict arises after a cup is stolen from a mound of treasure, which enrages the dragons, to which the treasure does not originally belong. Each dragon is likened to a giant worm and presented as bloodthirsty and destructive, ruining nearby villages. Certain descriptions in The Hobbit seem to have been lifted straight out of Beowulf with some minor rewording, such as when each dragon stretches out its neck to sniff for intruders.
[14] Likewise, Tolkien’s descriptions of the lair as accessed through a secret passage mirror those in Beowulf. Tolkien refines parts of Beowulf’s plot that he appears to have found less than satisfactorily described, such as details about the cup-thief and the dragon’s intellect and personality.
[15] Beowulf and The Hobbit each depict a fascination with cursed gold, an obsession that later reappears when the hobbit himself covets the ultimate cursed treasure in The Lord of the Rings.
Publication
George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. of London published the first edition of
The Hobbit
on 21 September 1937. The original printing numbered 1,500 copies and sold out by December due to enthusiastic reviews.
[16] This first printing was illustrated with many black-and-white drawings by Tolkien, who also designed the
dust jacket.
Houghton Mifflin of
Boston and
New York reset type for an American edition, to be released early in 1938, in which four of the illustrations would be colour plates. Allen & Unwin decided to incorporate the colour illustrations into their second printing, released at the end of 1937.
[17] Despite the book's popularity,
paper rationing brought on by
wartime conditions and not ending until 1949 meant that the book was often unavailable in this period.
[18]
Subsequent
editions in English were published in 1951, 1966, 1978 and 1995. The novel has been
reprinted frequently by many publishers.
In addition,
The Hobbit
has been
translated into over forty languages, some of them more than once.
[19]
Revisions
In December 1937, ''The Hobbit
s 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". [20] Tolkien subsequently began work on 'The New Hobbit', which would eventually become
The Lord of the Rings'',
[20] a course that would not only change the context of the original story, but also 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.
[22] In the second edition edits, in order to reflect the new concept of
the 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, Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it forever!" This sets the stage for 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 conformance 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 the sample text had been incorporated.
[23] In
The Lord of the Rings
, the original version of the riddle game is explained as a "lie" made up by Bilbo, whereas the revised version contains the "true" account.
[24] The revised text became the second edition, published in 1951 in both the UK and the USA.
[25]
After an unauthorized paperback edition of
The Lord of the Rings
appeared from
Ace Books in 1965, Houghton Mifflin and
Ballantine requested Tolkien to refresh the text of
The Hobbit
in order to renew US copyright.
[26] This text became the 1966 third edition. Tolkien took the opportunity to align the narrative even more closely to
The Lord of the Rings
and to cosmological developments from his still unpublished
Quenta Silmarillion
as it stood at that time.
[27] These small edits included, for example, changing the phrase
elves that are now called Gnomes
from the first
[28] and second
[29] editions on page 63, to
High Elves of the West, my kin
in the third edition.
[30] Tolkien had used "
gnome" in his earlier writing to refer to the second kindred of the
High Elves—the
Noldor (or "Deep Elves")—thinking "
gnome", derived from the Greek
gnosis
(knowledge), was a good name for the wisest of the elves. However, because of its common denotation of a
garden gnome, derived from the 16th Century
Paracelsus, Tolkien abandoned the term.
[31]
In order to fit the tone of
The Hobbit
better to its sequel, Tolkien began a new version in 1966, removing the narrative asides. 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.
[32]
Posthumous editions
Since the author's death, two editions of
The Hobbit
have been published with commentary on the creation, emendation and development of the text.
In
The Annotated Hobbit
Douglas Anderson provides the entire text of the published book, alongside commentary and illustrations. Anderson's commentary shows many of the sources Tolkien brought together in preparing the text, and chronicles in detail the changes Tolkien made to the various published editions. Alongside the annotations, the text is illustrated by pictures from many of the translated editions, including images by
Tove Jansson.
[33] Also printed here are a number of hard to find texts such as the 1923 version of Tolkien's poem "Iumonna Gold Galdre Bewunden". Micheal D. C. Drout and Hilary Wynn comment the work provides a solid foundation for further criticism.
[34]
With
The History of the Hobbit
, published in two parts in 2007, John Rateliff provides the full text of the earliest and intermediary drafts of the book, alongside commentary that shows relationships to Tolkien's scholarly and creative works, both contemporary and later. Rateliff also provides the abandoned 1960s retelling. The book keeps Rateliff's commentary separate from Tolkien's text, allowing the reader to read the original draft as a story. Rateliff also provides previously unpublished illustrations by Tolkien. Jason Fisher, published in
Mythlore
, states in his review that the work is "an indispensable new starting point for the study of
The Hobbit
.
Illustration and design
Tolkien's correspondence and publisher's records show that Tolkien 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:
[35]
“
| 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 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-letters (
Anglo-Saxon runes) on the reverse so they could be seen when held up to the light.
[18] In the end the cost, as well as the shading of the maps, which would be difficult to reproduce, resulted in the final design of two maps as endpapers,
Thror's map
, and the
Map of the Wilderland
, both printed in black and red on the paper's cream background.
[38]
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 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
, and
the Front Gate
. All but one of the illustrations were a full page, and one, the Mirkwood illustration, required a separate plate.
[39]
Satisfied with his skills, the publishers thence 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 the title of the book and details of the author and publisher.
[40] The original jacket design contained several shades of several 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.
[41]
The publisher's production staff designed a binding, but Tolkien objected to several elements. Through several iterations, the final design ended up as mostly the author's. The spine shows Anglo Saxon runes: two "þ" (Thráin and Thrór) 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 the upper edge.
[42]
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 the Early Sun in His Eyes
,
Bilbo comes to the Huts of the Raft-elves
and a
Conversation with Smaug
, which features a dwarvish curse written in Tolkien's invented script
Tengwar, and signed with two "þ, "Th" runes.
[43] 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 the Early Sun in His Eyes
).
[42]
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.
[45]
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 popularisation of Norse runes within "
New Age" and
esoteric literature,
[46] stemming from Tolkien's popularity with the elements of
counter-culture in the 1970s.
[47]
Genre
The Hobbit
takes cues from narrative models of
children's literature, as shown by its
omniscient narrator and characters that pre-adolescent children can identify with, such as 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,
[48] as is the "home-away-home" (or
there and back again
) plot structure typical of the
Bildungsroman.
[49] While Tolkien claimed later to dislike the aspect of the narrative voice addressing the reader directly,
[50] the narrative voice contributes significantly to the success of the novel, and the story is, therefore, often read aloud.
[51] Emer O'Sullivan, in her
Comparative Children's Literature
, notes
The Hobbit
as one of a handful of children's books that is accepted into mainstream literature, alongside
Jostein Gaarder's
Sophie's World
(1991) and
J. K. Rowling's
Harry Potter
series (1997–2007).
[52]
Tolkien intended
The Hobbit
as a fairy story and wrote it in a tone suited to addressing children.
[53] Many of the initial reviews refer to the work as a fairy story. However, Bilbo Baggins is not the usual fairy tale protagonist – not the handsome eldest son or beautiful youngest daughter – but a plump, middle-aged, well-to-do Hobbit.
[54] 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 the story.
[55] The Hobbit
conforms to
Vladimir Propp's 31-motif model of folktales presented in his 1928 work
Morphology of the Folk Tale
, based on a structuralist analysis of
Russian folklore.
[56]
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 the works of
Gene Wolfe and
Jonathan Swift, which are more often considered adult literature. Sullivan credits the first publication of
The Hobbit
as an important step in 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 the fantasy genre's current status.
Style
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 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.
[57] While
The Hobbit
is written in a simple, friendly language, each of its characters has a unique voice. The narrator, who occasionally interrupts 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.
[58]
The basic form of the story is that of a
quest,
[59] told in episodes. For the most part of the book, each chapter introduces a different denizen of the Wilderland, some friendly towards the protagonists, and some threatening. While many of the encounters are dangerous or threatening, the general tone is light-hearted, and interspersed with songs. 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:
“
| Insert the text of the quote here, without quotation marks.
| ”
|
This onomatopœic singing undercuts the dangerous scene with 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 Tolkien's literary idol
William Morris.
[60]
The novel draws on Tolkien's knowledge of historical languages and early Northern European texts. The names of Gandalf and all but one of the thirteen dwarves were taken directly from the
Old Norse poem
Völuspá
from the
Poetic Edda
.
[61] Several of the author's illustrations (including the dwarven map, the frontispiece and the dust jacket) make use of
Anglo-Saxon runes. The names of the dwarf-friendly ravens are also derived from the Old Norse for raven and rook,
[62] but their characters are unlike the typical war-carrion from Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon literature.
Tolkien, however, is not simply skimming historical sources for effect:
linguistic styles, especially the relationship between the modern and ancient, has been seen to be one of the major themes explored by the story.
Critical analysis
Themes
The development 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 as a
Bildungsroman rather than a traditional quest.
[63] 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.
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.
[64] Jane Chance compares the development and growth of Bilbo against other characters to the concepts of just Kingship verses sinful kingship derived from the
Ancrene Wisse (which Tolkien had written on in 1929) and a Christian understanding of Beowulf.
[65]
The overcoming of greed and selfishness has been seen as the central moral of the story.
[66] 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,
[67] 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. 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.
[68] In the end Bilbo gives up the precious stone and most of his share of the treasure in order to help those in greater need. Tolkien also explores the motif of jewels that inspire intense greed which corrupts those that covet them in the
Silmarillion
, and there are connections between the words "Arkenstone" and "Silmaril" in Tolkien's invented etymologies.
[69]
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 the "
Doctor Dolittle Theme" in
The History of the Hobbit
, and cites the multitude of talking animals as indicative of this theme. These talking creatures include ravens, 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 a linguistic shifting in level from the inanimate to animate.
[70] 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".'
[71]
Interpretation
The Hobbit
can be seen as a creative exposition of Tolkien's theoretical and academic work. Themes found in
early English literature, and specifically in the poem
Beowulf
, have a heavy presence in defining the ancient world Bilbo stepped into. Tolkien is credited with being the first critic to expound on
Beowulf
as a literary work with value beyond merely historical, and his 1936 lecture
Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics
is still required reading for students of Anglo-Saxon. The
Beowulf
poem contains several elements that Tolkien borrowed for
The Hobbit
, including a monstrous, intelligent dragon
and named blades of renown, adorned in runes. It is in the use of his elf-blade that we see Bilbo finally taking his first independent heroic action. By his naming the blade "
Sting" we also 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.
[72] This progression culminates in Bilbo stealing 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."
[13]
As in plot and setting, Tolkien brings his literary theories to bear in forming characters and their interactions. He portrays Bilbo as 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 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
.
[74]
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, where the hero is plucked from his rural home and thrown into a far-off war where traditional types of heroism are shown to be futile.
[75] The tale as such explores the theme of heroism. As Jane 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.
[76] Similarities to 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 the Five Armies later are described as barren, damaged landscapes.
[77] The Hobbit
makes a warning against repeating the tragedies of World War I,
[78] 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.
| ”
|
Reception
On first publication in October 1937,
The Hobbit
was met with almost unanimously favourable reviews from publications both in the UK and the USA, including
The Times
,
Catholic World
and
The New York Post
.
C. S. Lewis, friend of Tolkien (and later author of
The Chronicles of Narnia
between 1949-1964), writing in
The Times
reports:
“
| The truth 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 also compares 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
.
[79] 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".
[80] Auden was later to correspond with Tolkien, and they became friends.
The Hobbit
was nominated for the
Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the
New York Herald Tribune
for best juvenile fiction of the year (1938). More recently, the book has been recognized as "Most Important 20th-Century Novel (for Older Readers)" in the
Children's Books of the Century
poll in
Books for Keeps
.
[81]
Publication of the sequel
The Lord of the Rings
altered many critics' reception of the work. Instead of approaching
The Hobbit
as a children's book in its own right, critics such as Randell Helms picked up on the idea of
The Hobbit
as being a "prelude", relegating the story to a dry-run for the later work. Countering a
presentist interpretation are those who say this approach misses out on much of the original's value as a children's book and as a work of high fantasy in its own right, and that it disregards the book's influence on these genres.
[82] Commentators such as Paul Kocher,
[83] John D. Rateliff
[84] and C. W. Sullivan
encourage readers to treat the works separately, both because
The Hobbit
was conceived, published, and received independently of the later work, and also in order to prevent the reader from having false expectations of tone and style dashed.
Legacy
The Lord of the Rings
While
The Hobbit
has been
adapted and elaborated upon in many ways, its sequel
The Lord of the Rings
is often claimed to be its greatest legacy. The plots share the same basic structure progressing in the same sequence: the stories begin at Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins; Gandalf sends the protagonist into a quest eastward; Elrond offers a haven and advice; the adventurers escape dangerous creatures underground (
Goblin Town/
Moria); they engage another group of elves (
The Elf King's realm/
Lothlórien); they traverse a desolate region (Desolation of Smaug/the
Dead Marshes); they fight in a massive battle; a descendant of kings is restored to his ancestral throne (
Bard/
Aragorn); and the questing party returns home to find it in a deteriorated condition (having possessions auctioned off/the scouring of the
Shire).
[85]
The Lord of the Rings
contains several more supporting scenes, and has a more sophisticated plot structure, following the paths of multiple characters. Tolkien wrote the later story in much less humorous tones and infused it with more complex moral and philosophical themes. The differences between the two stories can cause difficulties when readers, expecting them to be similar, find that they are not.
Many of the thematic and stylistic differences arose because Tolkien wrote
The Hobbit
as a story for children, and
The Lord of the Rings
for the same audience, who had subsequently grown up since its publication. Some differences are in minor details; for example, goblins are more often referred to as Orcs in
The Lord of the Rings
. Further, Tolkien's concept of
Middle-earth was to continually change and slowly evolve throughout his life and writings.
[86]
The Hobbit
in education
The style and themes of the book have been seen to help stretch precocious young readers' literacy skills, preparing them to approach the works of
Dickens and
Shakespeare. By contrast, offering readers modern teenage-oriented fiction may not exercise their advanced reading skills, while the material may contain themes more suited to adolescents.
[87] As one of several books that has been recommended for 11–14 year old boys to encourage literacy in that demographic,
The Hobbit
is promoted as "the original and still the best fantasy ever written."
[88]
Several teaching guides and books of study notes have been published to help teachers and students gain the most from the book.
The Hobbit
introduces literary concepts, notably
allegory, to young readers, as the work has been seen to have allegorical aspects reflecting the life and times of the author.
Meanwhile the author himself rejected an allegorical reading of his work.
[89] This tension can help introduce readers to 'readerly' and 'writerly' interpretations, to tenets of
New Criticism, and critical tools from Freudian analysis, such as
sublimation, in approaching literary works.
[90]
Another approach to critique taken in the classroom has been to propose the insignificance of female characters in the story as sexist. While Bilbo may be seen as a literary symbol of 'small folk' of any gender,
[91] a gender-conscious approach can help students establish notions of a "socially symbolic text" where meaning is generated by tendentious readings of a given text.
[92] Ironically, by this interpretation, the first authorized adaptation was a stage production in a girls' school.
Adaptations
In 1969 (over 30 years after first publication), Tolkien sold the film and merchandising rights to
The Hobbit
to
United Artists under an agreement stipulating a lump sum payment of £10,000
[93] plus a 7.5% royalty after costs, payable to Allen & Unwin and the author.
[94] In 1976 (three years after the author's death) United Artists sold the rights to
Saul Zaentz Company, who trade as
Tolkien Enterprises. Since then all "authorised" adaptations have been signed-off by Tolkien Enterprises. In 1997 Tolkien Enterprises licensed the film rights to Miramax, which assigned them in 1998 to
New Line Cinema.
[95] The heirs of Tolkien, including his son
Christopher Tolkien, filed suit against
New Line Cinema in February 2008 seeking payment of profits and to be "entitled to cancel... all future rights of New Line... to produce, distribute, and/or exploit future films based upon the Trilogy and/or the Films... and/or... films based on
The Hobbit
."
[96] [97]
The first authorised adaptation of
The Hobbit
appeared in March 1953, a stage production by
St. Margaret's School, Edinburgh.
[98] The Hobbit
has since been adapted for other media many times.
The
BBC Radio 4 series
The Hobbit
radio drama was an adaptation by
Michael Kilgarriff, broadcast in eight parts (four total hours) from September to November 1968. It starred
Anthony Jackson as narrator,
Paul Daneman as Bilbo and
Heron Carvic as Gandalf. The series was released on
audio cassette in 1988 and on CD in 1997.
[99]
The Hobbit
, an
animated version of the story produced by
Rankin/Bass, debuted as a television movie in the United States in 1977. In 1978,
Romeo Muller won a
Peabody Award for his teleplay for
The Hobbit
. The film was also nominated for the
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, but lost to
Star Wars
. The adaptation has been called "excruciable"
[19] and confusing for those not already familiar with the plot.
[101]
A
live-action film version is to be co-produced by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and
New Line Cinema,
produced by
Lord of the Rings
director Peter Jackson [102] and directed by
Pan's Labyrinth
director
Guillermo Del Toro.
[103] It is to be shot simultaneously as a two part movie with release dates of December 2011 and 2012. Del Toro was quoted in 2006 as saying: "I don't like little guys and dragons, hairy feet, hobbits – I've never been into that ... I hate all that stuff."
[104] The director signed on to the project in 2008.
[105] After taking the job, he was recorded by
Weta as saying, "Rereading
The Hobbit
just recently I was quite moved by discovering, through Bilbo's eyes, the illusory nature of possession, the sins of hoarding and the banality of war – whether in the
Western Front or at a Valley in Middle Earth. Lonely is the mountain indeed."
[106]
ME Games Ltd (formerly
Middle-earth Play-by-Mail
), which has won several
Origin Awards, uses the
Battle of Five Armies
as an introductory scenario to the full game and includes characters and armies from the book.
[107]
Several
computer and video games, both licensed and unlicensed, have been based on the story. One of the most successful was
The Hobbit
, an award-winning computer game developed in 1982 by
Beam Software and published by
Melbourne House with compatibility for most computers available at the time. A copy of the novel was included in each game package in order to encourage players to engage the text, since ideas for gameplay could be found therein.
[108] Likewise, it can be seen that the game is not attempting to re-tell the story, but rather sits along-side it, using the narrative to both structure and motivate gameplay.
[109] The game won the
Golden Joystick Award for Strategy Game of the Year in 1983
[110] and was responsible for popularizing the phrase, "Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold."
[111]
Collectors' market
While reliable figures are difficult to obtain, estimated global sales of
The Hobbit
run between 35
and 100
million copies since 1937. In the UK
The Hobbit
has not retreated from the top 5,000 books of Nielsen BookScan since 1995, when the index began, achieving a three-year sales peak rising from 33,084 (2000) to 142,541 (2001), 126,771 (2002) and 61,229 (2003), ranking it at the 3rd position in Nielsens' "Evergreen" book list.
[112] The enduring popularity of
The Hobbit
makes early printings of the book attractive collectors' items. The first printing of the first English-language edition can sell for between £6,000 and £20,000 at auction,
[113] [114] although the price for a signed first edition has reached over £60,000.
[115]
See also
- English-language editions of The Hobbit
- Early American editions of The Hobbit
- Translations of The Hobbit
- "The Quest of Erebor", Tolkien's retconned backstory for the novel published in Unfinished Tales
- The Hobbit (1977 film)
- The Hobbit films
Notes
- A Delightfully Imaginative Journey
- Lord of the Royalties
- A Tolkien Compass
- Dreaming of dragons: Tolkien's impact on Heaney's Beowulf
- A Tolkien Compass
- ''Oxford Poetry'' (1915) Blackwells
- ''Yorkshire Poetry'', Leeds, vol. 2, no. 19, October-November 1923
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|pages=xxx–xxxi}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=181}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=294}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=184}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=192}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=31}}
- Tolkien the medievalist
- Lord of the Elves and Eldils
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=8}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|pages=18-23}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=22}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=23}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=195}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=195}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=120}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=215}}
- {{ME-ref|fotr|Prologue}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|pages=18-23}}
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=765}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=218}}
- The Hobbit
- The Hobbit
- The Hobbit
- The History of Middle-earth: Vol 1 "The Book of Lost Tales 1"
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=781}}
- An example, alongside other illustrations can be seen at: Houghton Mifflin
- Review Essay: Tom Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look Back at Tolkien Criticism since 1982
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=14}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|pages=378-379}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=22}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=18}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=21}}
- Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=48}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=54}}
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=602}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=54}}
- The Hobbit
- Runeninschriften Als Quelle Interdisziplinarer Forschung
- The Rune Primer: A Down-to-Earth Guide to the Runes
- Narrative Models in Tolkien's Stories of Middle Earth
- Exploring Children's Literature: Teaching the Language and Reading of Fiction
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=193}}
- The Hobbit Major Themes
- Comparative Children's Literature
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=159}}
- The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
- Tolkien's Cauldron: Northern Literature and The Lord of the Rings
- The Limitations of Scientific Truth
- Other Worlds
- Book Notes: "The Hobbit"
- Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism
- An unexpected Guest. influence of William Morris on J. R. R. Tolkien's works
- Tolkien's Middle-earth: Lesson Plans, Unit Two
- The History of the Hobbit (review)
- Children's Literature
- Myth, Magic and Meaning in Tolkien's World
- Tolkiens Art
- Children's Literature
- The Hobbit Book Notes Summary: Topic Tracking - Greed
- J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|pages=603-609}}
- Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity
- The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends
- "In the hilt is fame": resonances of medieval swords and sword-lore in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=31}}
- Shippey, Tom: ''Tolkien: Author of the Century'', HarperCollins, 2000, p.41
- Review: Cover book: Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth
- "The young perish and the old linger, withering": J. R. R. Tolkien on World War II
- The Great War and Tolkien's Memory, an examination of World War I themes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
- When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=18}}
- The Hero is a Hobbit
- FAQ: Did Tolkien win any awards for his books?
- International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature
- "Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien"
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=xi}}
- "Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien"
- The History of Middle-earth: Vol 1 "The Book of Lost Tales 1"
- What exactly is a children's book?
- The Hobbit
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=131}}
- Glory Road: Epic Romance As An Allegory of 20th Century History; The World Through The Eyes Of J. R. R. Tolkien
- Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales
- Differently Literate: boys, Girls and the Schooling of Literacy
- How Tolkien triumphed over the critics
- Hobbit movies meet dire foe in son of Tolkien
- ‘The Rings’ Prompts a Long Legal Mire
- Tolkien's family threatens to block new Hobbit film
- Tolkien Trust v. New Line Cinema Corp.
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|pages=384–386}}
- I Am in Fact a Hobbit: An Introduction to the Life and Works of J. R. R. Tolkien
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=23}}
- NBC's The Hobbit
- Peter Jackson to produce ''The Hobbit''
- Del Toro to take charge of The Hobbit
- Conversations: Guillermo del Toro
- Del Toro to take charge of The Hobbit
- Jackson and del Toro Talk The Hobbit!
- Home of Middle Earth Strategic Gaming
- Using Computers in English: A Practical Guide
- "Quest Games as Post-Narrative Discourse" in "Narrative Across Media: The Languages of Storytelling"
- Playing The Game
- Top 100 Speccy Games
- Books you Must Stock
- Hobbit fetches £6,000 at auction
- How to make a killing from first editions
- Tolkien's Hobbit fetches £60,000
References
- A Delightfully Imaginative Journey
- Lord of the Royalties
- A Tolkien Compass
- Dreaming of dragons: Tolkien's impact on Heaney's Beowulf
- A Tolkien Compass
- ''Oxford Poetry'' (1915) Blackwells
- ''Yorkshire Poetry'', Leeds, vol. 2, no. 19, October-November 1923
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|pages=xxx–xxxi}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=181}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=294}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=184}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=192}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=31}}
- Tolkien the medievalist
- Lord of the Elves and Eldils
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=8}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|pages=18-23}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=22}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=23}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=195}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=195}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=120}}
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=215}}
- {{ME-ref|fotr|Prologue}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|pages=18-23}}
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=765}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=218}}
- The Hobbit
- The Hobbit
- The Hobbit
- The History of Middle-earth: Vol 1 "The Book of Lost Tales 1"
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=781}}
- An example, alongside other illustrations can be seen at: Houghton Mifflin
- Review Essay: Tom Shippey's J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look Back at Tolkien Criticism since 1982
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=14}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|pages=378-379}}
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=22}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=18}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=21}}
- Interrupted Music: The Making of Tolkien's Mythology
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=48}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=54}}
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=602}}
- {{harvnb|Hammond|1993|page=54}}
- The Hobbit
- Runeninschriften Als Quelle Interdisziplinarer Forschung
- The Rune Primer: A Down-to-Earth Guide to the Runes
- Narrative Models in Tolkien's Stories of Middle Earth
- Exploring Children's Literature: Teaching the Language and Reading of Fiction
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1977|page=193}}
- The Hobbit Major Themes
- Comparative Children's Literature
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=159}}
- The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
- Tolkien's Cauldron: Northern Literature and The Lord of the Rings
- The Limitations of Scientific Truth
- Other Worlds
- Book Notes: "The Hobbit"
- Understanding the Lord of the Rings: The Best of Tolkien Criticism
- An unexpected Guest. influence of William Morris on J. R. R. Tolkien's works
- Tolkien's Middle-earth: Lesson Plans, Unit Two
- The History of the Hobbit (review)
- Children's Literature
- Myth, Magic and Meaning in Tolkien's World
- Tolkiens Art
- Children's Literature
- The Hobbit Book Notes Summary: Topic Tracking - Greed
- J. R. R. Tolkien and His Literary Resonances: Views of Middle-earth
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|pages=603-609}}
- Defending Middle-earth: Tolkien: Myth and Modernity
- The Inklings: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams and Their Friends
- "In the hilt is fame": resonances of medieval swords and sword-lore in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=31}}
- Shippey, Tom: ''Tolkien: Author of the Century'', HarperCollins, 2000, p.41
- Review: Cover book: Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth
- "The young perish and the old linger, withering": J. R. R. Tolkien on World War II
- The Great War and Tolkien's Memory, an examination of World War I themes in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
- When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=18}}
- The Hero is a Hobbit
- FAQ: Did Tolkien win any awards for his books?
- International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature
- "Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien"
- {{harvnb|Rateliff|2007|page=xi}}
- "Master of Middle-earth, the Achievement of J. R. R. Tolkien"
- The History of Middle-earth: Vol 1 "The Book of Lost Tales 1"
- What exactly is a children's book?
- The Hobbit
- {{harvnb|Carpenter|1981|page=131}}
- Glory Road: Epic Romance As An Allegory of 20th Century History; The World Through The Eyes Of J. R. R. Tolkien
- Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales
- Differently Literate: boys, Girls and the Schooling of Literacy
- How Tolkien triumphed over the critics
- Hobbit movies meet dire foe in son of Tolkien
- ‘The Rings’ Prompts a Long Legal Mire
- Tolkien's family threatens to block new Hobbit film
- Tolkien Trust v. New Line Cinema Corp.
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|pages=384–386}}
- I Am in Fact a Hobbit: An Introduction to the Life and Works of J. R. R. Tolkien
- {{harvnb|Anderson|2003|page=23}}
- NBC's The Hobbit
- Peter Jackson to produce ''The Hobbit''
- Del Toro to take charge of The Hobbit
- Conversations: Guillermo del Toro
- Del Toro to take charge of The Hobbit
- Jackson and del Toro Talk The Hobbit!
- Home of Middle Earth Strategic Gaming
- Using Computers in English: A Practical Guide
- "Quest Games as Post-Narrative Discourse" in "Narrative Across Media: The Languages of Storytelling"
- Playing The Game
- Top 100 Speccy Games
- Books you Must Stock
- Hobbit fetches £6,000 at auction
- How to make a killing from first editions
- Tolkien's Hobbit fetches £60,000