20 Facts About The Hobbit

The Hobbit is set within Tolkien's fictional universe and follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the titular hobbit, to win a share of the treasure guarded by a dragon named Smaug.

Tolkien's portrayal of goblins in The Hobbit was particularly influenced by George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.

The Hobbit 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.

Certain descriptions in The Hobbit seem to have been lifted straight out of Beowulf with some minor rewording, such as when the dragon stretches its neck out to sniff for intruders.

Representation of the dwarves in The Hobbit was influenced by his own selective reading of medieval texts regarding the Jewish people and their history.

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The Dwarvish calendar invented for The Hobbit reflects the Jewish calendar which begins in late autumn.

The Hobbit changed "tomatoes" to "pickles" but retained other anachronisms, such as clocks and tobacco.

Since the author's death, two critical editions of The Hobbit have been published, providing commentary on the creation, emendation and development of the text.

The Hobbit wished Thror's Map to be tipped in at first mention in the text, and with the moon letter Cirth on the reverse so they could be seen when held up to the light.

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 the small, food-obsessed, and morally ambiguous Bilbo.

The Hobbit has been called "the most popular of all twentieth-century fantasies written for children".

The Hobbit portrays Bilbo as a modern anachronism exploring an essentially antique world.

On first 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.

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 .

Sullivan encourage readers to treat the works separately, both because The Hobbit was conceived, published, and received independently of the later work, and to avoid dashing readers' expectations of tone and style.

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.

The Hobbit has been adapted many times for a variety of media, starting with a March 1953 stage production by St Margaret's School, Edinburgh.

The first motion picture adaptation of The Hobbit was Gene Deitch's 1966 short film of cartoon stills.

The Hobbit then recorded the work again as an audiobook, with cover art by Alan Lee.

The enduring popularity of The Hobbit makes early printings of the book attractive collectors' items.