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Gormadoc Brandybuck

Gormadoc Brandybuck

Hobbits are a fictional race in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth books. They first appear in The Hobbit and play an important role in the book The Lord of the Rings. This is a list of hobbits that are mentioned by name in Tolkien's works. They are ordered alphabetically by first name. In cases where a hobbit’s family name was changed, usually through marriage, their original family name is given in parentheses. Nicknames are listed in quotation marks. Note that the years are given in years of the Third Age (unless otherwise noted), and not according to the Shire reckoning. Interestingly, one line from The Hobbit includes the insinuation (or at least Bilbo's assumption) Gandalf is "responsible for so many hobbit lads and lasses" going on adventures.

A

Adaldrida (Bolger) Brandybuck

(~2818–?) Wife of Marmadoc Brandybuck and mother to Gorbadoc Brandybuck, Orgulas Brandybuck, and two unnamed daughters. Her years of birth and death are not given in The Lord of the Rings, but a birth-year of 2818 for her appears on Bolger family tree 'BG4' in The Peoples of Middle-earth.

Adamanta (Chubb) Took

(?–?) Wife of Gerontius Took and mother of Isengrim III Took, Hildigard Took, Isumbras IV Took, Hildigrim Took, Isembold Took, Hildilfons Took, Isembard Took, Hildibrand Took, Belladonna Baggins, Donnamira Boffin, Mirabella Brandybuck, and Isengar Took.

Adalgrim Took

(2880–2982) was the grandfather of both Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took (making them first cousins), and a cousin of Bilbo Baggins. His father was Hildigrim Took and his mother was Rosa Baggins. He was Bilbo's first cousin on his father's side (and Bilbo's mother's side) and Bilbo's second cousin on his mother's side (and Bilbo's father's side), making him an excellent example of the complicated kinship relationships among Hobbits.

Adelard Took

Amaranth (Brandybuck)

(2904–2998) The second child of Gorbadoc Brandybuck and Mirabella Brandybuck.

Andwise "Andy" Roper

Angelica (Baggins)

(2981–?) Daughter of Ponto Baggins. Noted for her vanity. Received a mirror from Bilbo after the farewell party.

Asphodel (Brandybuck) Burrows

(2913–3012) The fifth child of Gorbadoc Brandybuck and Mirabella Brandybuck, wife of Rufus Burrows, and mother of Milo Burrows. She attended Bilbo's farewell party.

B

Balbo Baggins

(T.A. 2767–c. 2863) is the first recorded Baggins, and the ancestor of the Baggins family of Hobbiton. He married Berylla Boffin and had five children: Mungo, Pansy, Ponto, Largo, and Lily.
- :Note on Balbo's dates: In the published Baggins geneaology only Balbo's birthdate is shown, but by looking at his children it is possible to estimate his deathdate.

Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took

(2704–2806) led the defense against the T.A. and second child of Mungo Baggins and Laura Baggins.

Bell (Goodchild) Gamgee

(?–?) Wife of Hamfast Gamgee and mother of Hamson Gamgee, Halfred Gamgee, Daisy Gamgee, May Gamgee, Samwise Gamgee, and Marigold Cotton.

Belladonna (Took) Baggins

(2852–2934) The "remarkable" ninth child, and eldest daughter, of Gerontius Took and Adamanta Took. Wife of Bungo Baggins and mother of Bilbo Baggins. She was also well known to the wizard Gandalf.

Berylla (Boffin) Baggins

(~2772–?) Wife of Balbo Baggins and mother of Mungo Baggins, Pansy Bolger, Ponto Baggins, Largo Baggins, and Lily Goodbody. Her years of birth and death are not given in The Lord of the Rings, but a birth-year of 2772 for her appears on Boffin family tree 'BF4' in The Peoples of Middle-earth.

Bilbo Baggins

— first Baggins to have a great adventure. He became extremely rich, and was eccentric: known as "Mad Baggins".

Bilbo Gardner

Bingo Baggins

the brother of Bungo, married Chica Chubb; they had one son, Falco Chubb-Baggins. Falco is most notable as Bilbo's cousin.

Bodo Proudfoot

Bowman "Nick" Cotton

Bucca of the Marish

founded the family of the Oldbucks, after settling in the later Eastfarthing. Also the first Thain.

Bungo Baggins

(T.A. 2846–2926) was the father of Bilbo. He was also the builder of Bag End. He and his wife Belladonna (née Took) lived there until the end of their days. He had a brother named Bingo.

C

Camellia (Sackville) Baggins

(?–?) Wife of Longo Baggins and mother of Otho Sackville-Baggins.

Carl "Nibs" Cotton

Celandine (Brandybuck)

(2994–?) Third child of Seredic Brandybuck and Hilda (Bracegirdle) Brandybuck. She attended Bilbo's farewell party.

Chica (Chubb) Baggins

(?–?) Wife of Bingo Baggins and mother of Falco Chubb-Baggins.

Cotman

Cottar

D

Daisy (Baggins) Boffin

(2950–?) was a cousin of Frodo Baggins. She was the daughter of Drogo's brother Dudo (2911–3009). She married Griffo Boffin.

Daisy (Gamgee)

(2972–?) Sister of Samwise.

Daisy (Gardner)

Daughter of Samwise.

Déagol

Diamond "of Long Cleeve" Took

(2995–?) became the wife of Thain Peregrin Took in the 6th year of the Fourth Age. She is possibly one of the North-Tooks, decended from Bandobras Took (aka Bullroarer). She had one son Faramir, named for a Steward of Gondor (see Faramir). Her date of death is not known, but some people assume Diamond probably died sometime before the year 63 of the Fourth Age when Pippin left the Shire to live in Gondor.

Dinodas Brandybuck

Doderic Brandybuck

Dodinas Brandybuck

Donnamira (Took) Boffin

Dora (Baggins)

Drogo Baggins

Dudo Baggins

E

Eglantine (Banks) Took

Elanor "the Fair" (Gardner)

(3021–?) was the first child of Master Samwise Gamgee and his wife Rose Cotton. See Elanor Gardner.

Elfstan Fairbairn

Erling

Esmeralda (Took) Brandybuck

A descendant of Gerontius the Old Took, and younger sister to Thain Paladin Took II. She married Saradoc Brandybuck and was thus both Peregrin Took's aunt and Merry Brandybuck's mother.

Estella (Bolger) Took

(2985–?) was the sister of Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger, the companion that Frodo, Merry, Pippin, and Sam left behind in Crickhollow at the start of The Fellowship of the Ring. She married Master Meriadoc Brandybuck of Buckland, and had at least one son. Estella probably died sometime before the year 63 of the Fourth Age when Merry left the Shire to live in Gondor.

Everard Took

F

Falco Chubb-Baggins

Faramir I Took

Farmer "Muddy-feet" Maggot

Fastolph Bolger

Fastred of Greenholm

Ferdibrand Took

Ferdinand Took

Ferumbras II Took

Ferumbras III Took

(2916–3015), while not otherwise particularly famous, was Thain at the time of the Farewell party of Bilbo Baggins at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. He was the son of Fortinbras Took II (2878–2980, a cousin of Bilbo) and Lalia Clayhanger. He never married because no one wanted Lalia for a mother-in-law.

Filibert Bolger

Firiel Fairbairn

was the daughter of Elanor Gamgee and Fastred of Greenholm.

Flambard Took

Fortinbras I Took

Fortinbras II Took

Fosco Baggins

Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger

Frodo Baggins

— nephew and heir of Bilbo, he was involved in the war of the Ring.

Frodo Gardner

G

Gerontius "The Old" Took

was the second oldest Hobbit in the Shire's history. The 26th Thain of the Shire, he ruled for 72 years, and died at the age of 130. He was particular friends with Gandalf, and was a direct ancestor to the majority of the famous Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings. He married Adamanta Chubb and had twelve children; nine sons: Isengrim III, Hildigard, Isumbras IV, Hildigrim (great-grandfather to Peregrin Took & Meriadoc Brandybuck), Isembold, Hildifons, Isembard, Hildibrand (great-grandfather to Fredegar Bolger), and Isengar; and three daughters: Belladonna (mother to Bilbo Baggins), Donnamira, and Mirabella (grandmother to Frodo Baggins).

Gilly (Brownlock) Baggins

Goldilocks (Gardner) Took

(10 F.A.–?) was the 3rd daughter of Master Samwise Gamgee and his wife Rose Cotton. In FA 42, she married Faramir Took, son of Peregrin Took, Thain of the Shire. Faramir became Thain in F.A. 63, when his father left for Gondor.

Gorbadoc "Broadbelt" Brandybuck

Gorbulas Brandybuck

Gorhendad (Oldbuck) Brandybuck

eleventh Thain of the Oldbuck line. He led the colonization of Buckland, and renamed himself to Brandybuck.

Gormadoc "Deepdelver" Brandybuck

(2734-2836): Master of Buckland until his death, and an ancestor of both Frodo Baggins and Meriadoc Brandybuck.

Griffo Boffin

H

Halfast Gamgee

Halfred Gamgee

Halfred Greenhand

Hanna (Goldworthy) Brandybuck

Hamfast "Ham / Gaffer / Old" Gamgee

Hamfast Gardner

Hamfast of Gamwich

Hamson Gamgee

Harding Gardner

Hending

Hilda (Bracegirdle) Brandybuck

Hildibrand Took

Hildifons Took

Hildigard Took

Hildigrim Took

Hob "Old Gammidgy" Gammidge

Hob Hayward

Hobson "Roper" Gamgee

Holfast Gardner

Holman "Long Hom" Cotton

Holman "the greenhanded"

Holman Greenhand

Hugo Boffin

Hugo Bracegirdle

I

Ilberic Brandybuck

Isembard Took

Isembold Took

Isengar Took

Isengrim II Took

Isengrim III Took

Isumbras III Took

Isumbras IV Took

J

K

L

Lalia (Clayhanger) Took

(2883–3002) was the wife of Thain Fortinbras Took II. She married in 2914, and her son Ferumbras was born two years later. Ferumbras never married, reportedly because nobody wanted Lalia as a mother-in-law. Lalia was so fat she couldn't walk and was confined to a wheelchair: she was widely known as Lalia the Great (or sometimes the Fat). In T.A. 3002 her attendant, Pearl Took, accidentally tipped Lalia out of her weelchair into her garden, and she died. (Lalia isn't on the Took family tree published in The Lord of the Rings, but she is mentioned in The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien.)

Largo Baggins

Laura (Grubb) Baggins

(2814–2916) was the grandmother of Bilbo Baggins. She was the wife of Mungo Baggins. Besides Bungo, she had four other children; Belba (2856–2956), Longo (2860–2950), Linda, and Bingo (2864–2963). Upon the death of her husband she became Head of the Family. She died and was succeeded by her eldest son, Bungo.

Lily (Baggins) Goodbody

Lily (Brown) Cotton

Linda (Baggins) Proudfoot

(2862–2963) was the sister of Bungo Baggins. She married Bodo Proudfoot, and had a son named Odo (2904–3005). Linda was also an aunt of Bilbo Baggins.

Lobelia (Bracegirdle) Sackville-Baggins

(c. 2918–3020) married Otho, and had a son, Lotho. Lobelia had tried to claim Bag End together with Otho during Bilbo's disappearance, but could only move in when Frodo sold it to her. Much of Bilbo's silverware vanished during his disappearance; when Bilbo left the Shire permanently, he gave Lobelia a box of silver spoons labeled "For Lobelia, from Cousin Bilbo, as a present." During the War of the Ring she opposed Saruman, and was imprisoned. Freed after the Scouring of the Shire, Lobelia granted Bag End back to Frodo, and moved back to her original family, the Bracegirdles of Hardbottle. She died in 3020, and she was over 100 years old.

Longo Baggins

Lotho "Pimple" Sackville-Baggins

became an accomplice of Saruman during the War of the Ring. Trading pipeweed with Saruman for money, he began buying land in the Southfarthing, where Men from Isengard were stationed. With the aid of these Ruffians, Lotho was able to depose and imprison Will Whitfoot, the Shire's lawful mayor, and declared himself Chief Shirriff. Under his command the Shire was industrialised. Lotho began to call himself The Boss. However, Lotho was soon stripped of his power, and Saruman took over. Saruman's servant Gríma Wormtongue killed Lotho, and either buried Lotho — or ate him.

M

Madoc "Proudneck" Brandybuck

Malva "Headstrong" Brandybuck

(c. 2738–2839) was the first female hobbit to be recorded on the hobbit geneaologies. She married Gormadoc Brandybuck and had three sons: Madoc (2775-2877), Sadoc (2779-?), and Marroc (c. 2783—?).

Marigold (Gamgee) Cotton

Marmadas Brandybuck

Marmadoc "Masterful" Brandybuck

Marroc Brandybuck

May (Gamgee)

(2928–?)

May (Gamgee)

(2976–?)

Melilot (Brandybuck)

(2985–?) was a guest at the farewell party of Bilbo Baggins. She danced the Springle-ring (a hobbit dance) with Everard Took. She was a third cousin of Meriadoc Brandybuck.

Menegilda (Goold) Brandybuck

Mentha (Brandybuck)

Meriadoc "Merry / the Magnificent" Brandybuck

Merimac Brandybuck

Merimas Brandybuck

Merry Gardner

Milo Burrows

Mimosa (Bunce) Baggins

Minto Burrows

Mirabella (Took) Brandybuck

Moro Burrows

Mosco Burrows

Mungo Baggins

(2807–2900) was the grandfather of Bilbo Baggins. Mungo was the eldest son of Balbo Baggins and Berylla Boffin Baggins. Mungo had four younger siblings: Pansy, Ponto, Largo, and Lily. Mungo married Laura Grubb. and had five children.

Myrtle (Burrows)

N

O

Odo Proudfoot

Odovacar Bolger

Olo Proudfoot

Orgulas Brandybuck

Otho Sackville-Baggins

(2910–3012) adopted the name of both his parents, effectively founding a new family. His and his son Lotho's ambition was to succeed Bilbo (and later Frodo) as head of the Baggins family; had that happened, Lotho would have called himself 'Baggins-Sackville-Baggins.'

P

Paladin II Took

Pansy (Baggins) Bolger

Pearl (Took)

(2975–?) was the eldest sister of Peregrin "Pippin" Took. She also had two sisters named Pimpernel and Pervinca. Pearl probably died sometime before the year 63 of the Fourth Age when Pippin left the Shire to live in Gondor. In The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien it is mentioned that she was the caretaker of the Took matriarch Lalia Clayhanger-Took at the time of her "fatal fall", and might have been responsible for it, a feat for which she was lauded by the other Tooks.

Peony (Baggins) Burrows

Peregrin I "Pippin" Took

(2990—?) was actually known far outside of the Shire for his exploits as a member of the Fellowship of the Ring and in Gondor, but to the Hobbits he was probably best-known for his part in the Battle of Bywater. He became Thain in F.A. 13. His wife, Diamond of Long Cleave, was probably one of the North-Tooks.

Pervinca (Took)

Pimpernel (Took)

Pippin Gardner

Polo Baggins

Ponto Baggins

Porto Baggins

Posco Baggins

Poppy (Chubb-Baggins) Bolger

Primrose (Gardner)

Primula (Brandybuck) Baggins

(2920–2980) was a daughter of Gorbadoc Brandybuck, Master of Buckland, and Mirabella Took, the youngest daughter of the Old Took. She married Drogo Baggins, and had one child, Frodo. In 2980, both she and Drogo drowned in the Baranduin, leaving Frodo orphaned.

Prisca (Baggins) Bolger

Q

R

Reginard Took

Robin "Cock-robin" Smallburrow

Robin Gardner

Rorimac "Goldfather / Old Rory" Brandybuck

Rosa (Baggins) Took

(2856–?) was an ancestor of both Merry and Pippin. Rosa was the daughter of Ponto Baggins and Mimosa Bunce. She had a younger brother, Polo. Her husband was Hildigrim Took (2840–2941), one of the many sons of the Old Took.

Rosamunda (Took) Bolger

Rose "Rosie" (Cotton) Gardner

(2984–61 F.A.). Daughter of Tolman Cotton and Lily Brown and sister of Tolman (Tom), Wilcome (Jolly), Bowman (Nick), and Carl (Nibs). Rosie was a long-time friend of Samwise Gamgee, and they were married in 3020 when Sam returned home after the War of the Ring. Sam and Rosie had thirteen children (Elanor, Frodo, Rose, Merry, Pippin, Goldilocks, Hamfast, Daisy, Primrose, Bilbo, Ruby, Robin, Tolman (Tom)). Many were named after Sam and Rosie's friends and relatives. Among them were Elanor the Fair, Frodo Gardner (F.A. 2—), and Goldilocks. Rosie died in the year 61 of the Fourth Age. Sam then left Middle-earth for the Undying Lands later that year. 'Cotton' in Hobbitish is 'Hlothran'. In the film trilogy Rosie lives at 10 Bagshot row and is played by Sarah McLeod. :"I think the simple 'rustic' love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero's) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the 'longing for Elves', and sheer beauty." - J.R.R Tolkien letter dated 1951.

Rose

daughter of Holman the greenhanded.

Rose (Gardner)

Second daughter of Samwise.

Rowan

Ruby (Bolger) Baggins

Ruby (Gardner)

Rudigar Bolger

Rufus Burrows

S

Sadoc Brandybuck

Salvia (Brandybuck) Bolger

Samwise "Sam" (Gamgee) Gardner

Sancho Proudfoot

Saradas Brandybuck

Saradoc "Scattergold" Brandybuck

Seredic Brandybuck

Sigismond Took

Sméagol "Gollum"

T

Tanta (Hornblower) Baggins

Ted Sandyman

Tobold "Old Toby" Hornblower

Togo Goodbody

Tolman "Tom" Cotton

Tolman "Tom" Gardner

Tolman "Young Tom" Cotton

U

V

W

Wilcome "Jolly" Cotton

Wilcome "Will" Cotton

Wilibald Bolger

Will "old Will / old Flourdumpling" Whitfoot

Wiseman Gamwich

X

Y

Z

External links

- [http://www.rosiesamfrodo.com/nowhere/index.html Nowhere Elaborated - a Rosie Cotton site]
- [http://www.alleycatscratch.com/lotr/Hobbit/Rosie.htm Rosie Cotton costume site]
- List

Hobbits

Hobbits are a race from J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth universe which first appears in the book The Hobbit. They also play a major role in The Lord of the Rings.

Description

Hobbits are between two to four feet tall, the average height being 3 feet 6 inches, with slightly pointed ears and oversized furry feet with leathery soles, resulting in most never wearing shoes. They are fond of an unadventurous bucolic life of farming, eating, and socializing. Living rather longer than humans, Hobbits can sometimes live for up to 130 years (with 100 years average). The time at which a young Hobbit "comes of age" is 33, as compared to the human 21 years. Thus a 70 year old Hobbit would only be middle-aged. Hobbits also like to drink ale in inns, not unlike the English countryfolk, who were Tolkien's inspiration. We can also see that in the name Tolkien chose for the part of Middle-earth where the Hobbits live: "The Shire" is clearly reminiscent of the English county names (e.g., Lancashire, Shropshire — see English Shire). (Mealtimes, at least according to Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, consist at least of the seven meals known as breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper. Tolkien did say that Hobbits eat "at least six meals a day when they can get it", but he didn't give their names.)

Origin

Hobbits are evidently related to Men, and are represented as a pygmy offshoot of that race. Their exact origin is unknown, but by the early Third Age they were living in the Vales of Anduin in Wilderland.

Etymology

Hobbits are also called Halflings (in Sindarin, perian singular and periannath collective) due to their small stature. However, the term is slightly offensive to Hobbits, as to themselves they are not 'half' of anything, and certainly do not use the term to refer to themselves. Tolkien's etymology for 'Hobbit' is interesting as well: obviously constructed without prior intent, it would have been natural for him to connect it to the German prefix hob meaning small (e.g. hobgoblin). However this prefix dates back "only" to the 13th century, too late by Tolkien's standards, and so he constructed an alternative etymology, from Old English hol-bytla, "hole-dweller". When later he began to work out the language relations further, Hobbit was to be derived from the Rohirric (actually Anglo-Saxon - which Rohirric parallels in Tolkien's universe) Holbytlan (hole builders). In the original Westron, the name was Kuduk (Hobbit), derived from the actual Rohirric kûd-dûkan (hole dweller). According to Tolkien, the word hobbit was the first element of The Hobbit that he created. As a university lecturer, he was in the process of correcting reports when he started scribbling on a piece of paper and wrote, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit", and the multitude of stories sprang from that. The idea of a little hole dwelling creature was introduced to Tolkien by one of his students in a story he had written.

Some well-known Hobbits

- Bilbo Baggins
- Frodo Baggins
- Samwise "Sam" Gamgee
- Meriadoc "Merry" Brandybuck
- Peregrin "Pippin" Took
- Fredegar "Fatty" Bolger
- Otho and Lotho Sackville-Baggins
- Old Took
- Bullroarer Took
- Sméagol (who became the creature Gollum)
- Déagol Though in The Hobbit it is mentioned that Gandalf "was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures," no female Hobbits are depicted in Tolkien's stories doing so; however Hobbit women do appear in his works, such as the formidable Lobelia Sackville-Baggins.

History

Historically, the Hobbits are known to have originated in the Valley of Anduin, between Mirkwood and the Misty Mountains. According to The Lord of the Rings, they have lost the genealogical details of how they are related to the rest of humankind. At this time, there were three Hobbit-kinds, with different temperaments. The Harfoots, the most numerous, were almost identical to the Hobbits as they are described in The Hobbit. The Stoors had an affinity for water, boats and swimming; the Fallohides were an adventurous people. (Both of these traits were much rarer in later days.) While situated in the valley of the Anduin River the Hobbits lived close by the Eotheod, the ancestors of the Rohirrim, and this led to some contact between the two. As a result many old words and names in "Hobbitish" are derivatives of words in Rohirric, so much so that even someone without linguistic training could make out the relation (Merry would later write an entire book devoted to the relationship, Old Place Names in the Shire). Some time near the beginning of the Third Age, they undertook, for reasons unknown, but possibly having to do with Mordor's power, the arduous task of crossing the Misty Mountains. Some of the Stoors, however, stayed behind, and it is from these people that Gollum would come many years later. The Hobbits took different routes in their journey westward, but eventually came to a land between the River Baranduin (which they renamed Brandywine) and the Weather Hills. There they founded many settlements, and the divisions between the Hobbit-kinds began to blur. Around the year 1600 of the Third Age, two Fallohide brothers decided, again for reasons unknown, to cross the River Brandywine and settle on the other side. Large numbers of Hobbits followed them, and most of their former territory was depopulated. Only Bree and a few surrounding villages lasted to the end of the Third Age. The new land that they found on the west bank of the Brandywine is called the Shire. A map of the Shire and surrounding regions may be found at Eriador. Originally the Hobbits of the Shire swore nominal allegiance to the last Kings of Arnor, being required only to acknowledge their lordship, speed their messengers, and keep the bridges and roads in repair. During the final fight against Angmar at the Battle of Fornost, the Hobbits maintain that they sent a company of archers to help but this is nowhere else recorded. After the battle the kingdom of Arnor was destroyed, and in absence of the king the Hobbits elected a Thain of the Shire from among their own chieftans. The first Thain of the Shire was Bucca of the Marrish, who founded the Oldbuck family. However, later on the Oldbuck family crossed the Brandywine River to create the separate land of Buckland and the family name changed to the familiar "Brandybuck". Their patriach then became Master of Buckland. With the departure of the Oldbucks/Brandybucks, a new family was selected to have its chieftans be Thain, the Took family (Indeed, Pippin Took was son of the Thain and would later become Thain himself). The Thain was in charge of Shire Moot and Muster and the Hobbitry-in-Arms, but as the Hobbits of the Shire led entirely peaceful, uneventful lives the office of Thain was seen as something more of a formality.

The theological nature of hobbits

Characters within Tolkien's works consider Hobbits to be a separate race from Men, but Tolkien made it clear that they are actually an offshoot of the race of Men. Nearly all Tolkien scholars agree that Hobbits are closely related to Men, and are still far more closely related than they are to either Elves or Dwarves. Thus Hobbits are among the Younger Children of Iluvatar and are the result of the same act of creation as Men. This would imply that Hobbits have the Gift of Men to pass entirely beyond Arda, which also means that the avoidance of the Gift of Men in Hobbits, like in Men, can be physically and morally destructive. Smeagol, who had originally been a Hobbit, was transformed into the monster Gollum by a combination of the evil of the One Ring and the resulting avoidance of the Gift of Men. Bilbo Baggins became "thin and stretched" from the immortality that the One Ring granted to him, since neither Men nor Hobbits are intended for immortality in this world. Men and Hobbits appear to have the same theological nature (because Hobbits are derived from Men), which is that they are the result of the act of creation that resulted in the Younger Children of Iluvatar.

Usage outside Tolkien

"Hobbit" is a trademark owned by the Tolkien estate, as are most of the names, places and artifacts included in books by J. R. R. Tolkien. For this reason Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy tend to refer to Hobbits and Hobbit-like races rather as Halflings (hin in the Mystara universe, hurthlings in ADOM). The name hobbit had previously appeared in an obscure "list of spirits" by Michael Denham, which includes several repetitions. There is no evidence to suggest Tolkien used this as a source — indeed he spent many years trying to find out whether he really did coin the word. Denham's "hobbit spirits" (which are never referenced anywhere except in the long list) have no obvious relation to Tolkien's Hobbits, other than the name (which may possibly imply hob- "small", see below): Tolkien's Hobbits are small humans, not spirits. Nonetheless, some few people have suggested that the reference in the Denham list should invalidate the trademark. See Hobbit (Denham) for more discussion. The lexeme hob, meaning small, is a root word for hobbledehoy, hobgoblin, and hobyah. This may have influenced Tolkien's name; see Origin above. Homo floresiensis, an extinct species of humans discovered in 2004, has been informally dubbed a "hobbit" by its discoverers.

Notes

# Tolkien does not describe Hobbits' ears in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but in a 1938 letter to his American publisher, he described Hobbits as having "ears only slightly pointed and 'elvish'". (The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, No. 27.)

J. R. R. Tolkien's

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973) is best known as the author of The Hobbit and its sequel The Lord of the Rings. He worked as reader and professor in English language at Leeds from 1920 to 1925, as professor of Anglo-Saxon language at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and of English language and literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. He was a strongly committed Catholic. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis', and a member of the Inklings, a literary discussion group to which both Lewis and Owen Barfield belonged. In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumous books about what he called a legendarium, a fictional mythology of the remote past of Earth, called Arda, and Middle-earth (from middangeard, the lands inhabitable by Men) in particular. Most of these posthumously published works were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Reuel Tolkien. The enduring popularity and influence of Tolkien's works have established him as the "father of the modern high fantasy genre". Tolkien's other published fiction includes adaptations of stories originally told to his children and not directly related to the legendarium.

Biography

The Tolkien family

As far as is known, most of Tolkien's paternal ancestors were craftsmen. The Tolkien family had its roots in Saxony (Germany), but had been living in England since the 18th century, becoming "quickly and intensely English (not British)" (Letters, 165). The surname Tolkien is anglicised from Tollkiehn (i.e. German tollkühn, "foolhardy", the etymological English translation would be dull-keen, a literal translation of oxymoron). The character of Professor Rashbold in The Notion Club Papers is a pun on the name.

Childhood

Tolkien was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (now Free State), South Africa, to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel, who was born on February 17, 1894. When he was three, Tolkien went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of a severe brain haemorrhage before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Birmingham, England. Soon after in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent Hills and Lickey Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books along with other Worcestershire towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt's farm of Bag End, the name of which would be used in his fiction. Alvechurch Mabel tutored her two sons, and Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany, and she awoke in her son the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees. But his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early. He could read by the age of four, and could write fluently soon afterwards. He attended King Edward's School, Birmingham and, while a student there, helped "line the route" for the coronation parade of King George V, being posted just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace. He later attended St Phillip's School and Exeter College, Oxford. His mother converted to Roman Catholicism in 1900, despite vehement protests by her Baptist family. She died of diabetes in 1904, when Tolkien was twelve, at Fern Cottage, Rednal, which they were then renting. For the rest of his life, Tolkien felt that she had become a martyr for her faith; this had a profound effect on his own Catholic beliefs. Tolkien's devout faith was significant in the conversion of C. S. Lewis to Anglicanism. During his subsequent orphanhood he was brought up by Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham. He lived there in the shadow of Perrott's Folly and the Victorian tower of Edgbaston waterworks, which may have influenced the images of the dark towers within his works. Another strong influence was the romantic medievalist paintings of Edward Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery has a large and world-renowned collection of works and had put it on free public display from around 1908. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery

Youth

Tolkien met and fell in love with Edith Mary Bratt, three years his senior, at the age of sixteen. Father Francis forbade him from meeting, talking, or even corresponding with her until he was twenty-one. He obeyed this prohibition to the letter. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Birmingham, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society which they called "the T.C.B.S.", the initials standing for "Tea Club and Barrovian Society", alluding to their fondness of drinking Tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, illegally, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch, and in December 1914, they held a "Council" in London, at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In the summer of 1911, Tolkien went on holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter (Letters, no. 306), noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of twelve hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembers his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn ("the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams"). They went across the Kleine Scheidegg on to Grindelwald and across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass and through the upper Valais to Brig, and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. Zermatt (from Carpenter's Biography)]] On the evening of his twenty-first birthday, Tolkien telephoned Edith and asked her to be his bride, and she converted to Catholicism for him. They were engaged in Birmingham, in January 1913, and married in Warwick, England, on March 22, 1916. With his childhood love of landscape, he visited Cornwall in 1914 and he was said to be deeply impressed by the singular Cornish coastline and sea. After graduating from the University of Oxford (Exeter College, Oxford) with a first-class degree in English language in 1915, Tolkien joined the British Army effort in World War I and served as a second lieutenant in the eleventh battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers. His battalion was moved to France in 1916, where Tolkien served as a communications officer during the Battle of the Somme, until he came down with trench fever on October 27, and was moved back to England on November 8. Many of his fellow servicemen, as well as many of his closest friends, were killed in the war. During his recovery in a cottage in Great Haywood, Staffordshire, England, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps, and was promoted to lieutenant. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, one day he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a thick grove of hemlock. This incident inspired the account of the meeting of Beren and Lúthien, and Tolkien often referred to Edith as his Lúthien.

Oxford

Tolkien's first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary (among others, he initiated the entries wasp and walrus). In 1920 he took up a post as Reader in English language at the University of Leeds, and in 1924 was made a professor there, but in 1925 he returned to Oxford as a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College. Tolkien and Edith had four children: John Francis Reuel (November 17, 1917), Michael Hilary Reuel (October 1920–1984), Christopher John Reuel (1924) and Priscilla Anne Reuel (1929). Tolkien assisted Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the unearthing of a Roman Asclepieion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928. During his time at Pembroke, Tolkien wrote the The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings. Of Tolkien's academic publications, the 1936 lecture "Beowulf: the monsters and the critics" had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. In 1945, he moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien completed the The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches. During the 1950s, Tolkien spent many of his long academic holidays at the home of his son John Francis in Stoke-on-Trent. Tolkien had an intense dislike for the side effects of industrialisation, which he considered a devouring of the English countryside. For most of his adult life he eschewed automobiles, preferring to ride a bicycle. This attitude is perceptible from some parts of his work, such as the forced industrialisation of The Shire in The Lord of the Rings. industrialisation, next to one of his favourite trees (a Pinus nigra) in the Botanic Garden, Oxford.]] W.H. Auden was a frequent correspondent and long-time friend of Tolkien's, initiated by Auden's fascination with The Lord of the Rings: Auden was among the most prominent early critics to praise the work. Tolkien wrote in a 1971 letter, "I am [...] very deeply in Auden's debt in recent years. His support of me and interest in my work has been one of my chief encouragements. He gave me very good reviews, notices and letters from the beginning when it was by no means a popular thing to do. He was, in fact, sneered at for it." (Letters, no. 327).

Retirement and old age

During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien increasingly turned into a figure of public attention and literary fame. The sale of his books was so profitable that Tolkien regretted he had not taken early retirement. While at first he wrote enthusiastic answers to reader inquiries, he became more and more suspicious of emerging Tolkien fandom, especially among the hippy movement in the USA. Already in 1944, he made a somewhat sarcastic comment about a fan letter by a twelve-year-old American reader (It's nice to find that little American boys do really still say 'Gee Whiz'., Letters no. 87). In a 1972 letter he deplores having become a cult-figure, but admits that :even the nose of a very modest idol (younger than Chu-Bu and not much older than Sheemish) [idols in a story by Lord Dunsany] cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense! (Letters, no. 336). Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth at the south coast. Tolkien was awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace on March 28, 1972. 1972 Edith Tolkien died on November 29 1971, at the age of eighty-two, and Tolkien had the name Lúthien engraved on the stone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on September 2 1973, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with Beren added to his name, so that the engraving now reads: Edith Mary Tolkien, Lúthien, 1889–1971 John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, Beren, 1892–1973 Posthumously named after Tolkien are the Tolkien Road in Eastbourne, East Sussex, and the asteroid 2675 Tolkien. Tolkien Way in Stoke-On-Trent is named after J.R.R.'s son Father John Francis Tolkien, who used to be the priest in charge at the nearby Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Angels and St. Peter in Chains.

Writing

Stoke-On-Trent Beginning with The Book of Lost Tales, written while recuperating from illness during World War I, Tolkien devised several themes that were reused in successive drafts of his legendarium. The two most prominent stories, the tales of Beren and Lúthien and that of Túrin, were carried forward into long narrative poems (published in The Lays of Beleriand). Tolkien wrote a brief summary of the mythology these poems were intended to represent, and that summary eventually evolved into The Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-Earth. From around 1936, he began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis. Tolkien was strongly influenced by Anglo-Saxon literature, Germanic and Norse mythologies, Finnish folklore, the Bible, and Greek mythology. The works most often cited as sources for Tolkien's stories include Beowulf, the Kalevala, the Poetic Edda, the Volsunga saga and the Hervarar saga. Tolkien himself acknowledged Homer, Oedipus, and the Kalevala as influences or sources for some of his stories and ideas. His borrowings also came from numerous Middle English works and poems. In addition to his mythological compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other stories included Mr. Bliss, Roverandom, and Smith of Wootton Major. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium. Tolkien never expected his fictional stories to become popular, but he was persuaded by a former student to publish a book he had written for his own children called The Hobbit in 1937. However, the book attracted adult readers as well, and it became popular enough for the publisher, George Allen & Unwin, to ask Tolkien to work on a sequel. Even though he felt uninspired on the topic, this request prompted Tolkien to begin what would become his most famous work: the epic three-volume novel The Lord of the Rings (published 1954–55). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it. Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings as a children's tale like The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense back story of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien's influence weighs heavily on the fantasy genre that grew up after the success of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien continued to work on the history of Middle-earth until his death. His son Christopher, with some assistance from fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay, organised some of this material into one volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. In 1980 Christopher Tolkien followed this with a collection of more fragmentary material under the title Unfinished Tales, and in subsequent years he published a massive amount of background material on the creation of Middle-earth in the twelve-volume History of Middle-earth. All these posthumous works contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress, and Tolkien only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not even complete consistency to be found between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien was never able to fully integrate all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to completely rewrite the entire book. The library of Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, preserves many of Tolkien's original manuscripts, notes and letters; other original material survives at Oxford's Bodleian Library. Marquette has the manuscripts and proofs of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, and other manuscripts, including Farmer Giles of Ham, while the Bodleian holds the Silmarillion papers and Tolkien's academic work. The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the twentieth century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the "Nation's Best-loved Book". In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the ninety-second "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted thirty-fifth in a list of the Greatest South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited just to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK’s "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings (Der Herr der Ringe) to be their favourite work of literature.

Languages

See also Languages of Middle-earth. Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialised in Greek philology in college, and in 1915 graduated with Old Icelandic as special subject. He worked for the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918. In 1920, he went to Leeds as Reader in English Language, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged 33, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and he entertained notions of an inherited taste of language, which he termed the "native tongue" as opposed to "cradle tongue" in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language. He considered west-midland Middle English his own "native tongue", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955 (Letters, no. 163), "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)". Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for the construction of artificial languages. The best developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which are at the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonæsthetic" considerations. It was intended as an "Elvenlatin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish and Greek (Letters, no. 144). A notable addition came in late 1945 with Numenorean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis myth, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about inheritability of language, and via the "Second Age" and the Earendil myth was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the mythical past of his Middle-earth. Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages. In 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c &c are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends" (Letters, no. 180). The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's spellings dwarves and elvish (instead of dwarfs and elfish). Other terms he has coined, like legendarium and eucatastrophe, are mainly used in connection with Tolkien's work.

Works inspired by Tolkien

In a 1951 letter to Milton Waldman (Letters, no. 131), Tolkien writes about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which :The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama. The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to the Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity to the style of his own drawings. But Tolkien was not fond of all the artistic representation of his works that were produced in his lifetime, and was sometimes harshly disapproving. In 1946 (Letters, no. 107), he rejects suggestions for illustrations by Horus Engels for the German edition of the Hobbit as "too Disnified", :Bilbo with a dribbling nose, and Gandalf as a figure of vulgar fun rather than the Odinic wanderer that I think of. He was sceptical of the emerging fandom in the United States, and in 1954 he returned proposals for the dust jackets of the American edition of the Lord of the Rings (Letters, no. 144): :Thank you for sending me the projected 'blurbs', which I return. The Americans are not as a rule at all amenable to criticism or correction; but I think their effort is so poor that I feel constrained to make some effort to improve it. And in 1958, in an irritated reaction to a proposed movie adaptation of the Lord of the Rings by Morton Grady Zimmerman (Letters, no. 207) he writes, :I would ask them to make an effort of imagination sufficient to understand the irritation (and on occasion the resentment) of an author, who finds, increasingly as he proceeds, his work treated as it would seem carelessly in general, in places recklessly, and with no evident signs of any appreciation of what it is all about. He went on to criticise the script scene by scene ("yet one more scene of screams and rather meaningless slashings"). But Tolkien was in principle open to the idea of a movie adaptation. He sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968, while, guided by scepticism towards future productions, he forbade that Disney should ever be involved (Letters, no. 13): :It might be advisable […] to let the Americans do what seems good to them – as long as it was possible […] to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose works I have a heartfelt loathing). United Artists never made a film, though at least John Boorman was planning a film in the early seventies. It would have been a live-action film, which apparently would have been much more to Tolkien's liking than an animated film. In 1976 the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first movie adaptation (an animated rotoscoping film) of The Lord of the Rings appeared only after Tolkien's death (in 1978, directed by Ralph Bakshi). This first adaptation, however, only contained the first half of the story that is The Lord of the Rings. In 1977 an animated TV production of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980 they produced an animated film titled The Return of the King, which covered some of the portion of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete. In 2001–3 The Lord of the Rings was filmed in full and as a live-action film as a trilogy of films by Peter Jackson.

Bibliography

Fiction and poetry

See also Poems by J. R. R. Tolkien.
- 1936 Songs for the Philologists, with E.V. Gordon et al.
- 1937 The Hobbit or There and Back Again, ISBN 0-618-00221-9 (HM).
- 1945 Leaf by Niggle (short story)
- 1945 The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun, published in Welsh Review
- 1949 Farmer Giles of Ham (medieval fable)
- 1953 The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son published with the essay Ofermod
- The Lord of the Rings
- 1954 The Fellowship of the Ring: being the first part of The Lord of the Rings, ISBN 0-618-00222-7 (HM).
- 1954 The Two Towers: being the second part of The Lord of the Rings, ISBN 0-618-00223-5 (HM).
- 1955 The Return of the King: being the third part of The Lord of the Rings, ISBN 0-618-00224-3 (HM).
- 1962 The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Verses from the Red Book
- 1967 The Road Goes Ever On, with Donald Swann
- 1964 Tree and Leaf (On Fairy-Stories and Leaf by Niggle in book form)
- 1966 The Tolkien Reader (The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorthelm's Son, On Fairy Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Farmer Giles of Ham' and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil)
- 1966 Tolkien on Tolkien (autobiographical)
- 1967 Smith of Wootton Major
Academic works

- 1922 A Middle English Vocabulary
- 1924 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (with E. V. Gordon)
- 1925 Some Contributions to Middle-English Lexicography
- 1925 The Devil's Coach Horses
- 1929 Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiohad
- 1932 The Name 'Nodens' (in: Report on the Excavation of the Prehistoric, Roman, and Post-Roman Site in Lydney Park, Gloucestershire.)
- 1932/1935 Sigelwara Land parts I and II
- 1934 The Reeve's Tale (rediscovery of dialect humour, introducing the Hengwrt manuscript into textual criticism of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales)
- 1936 Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (lecture on Beowulf criticism)
- 1939 On Fairy-Stories (Tolkien's philosophy on fantasy, given as the 1939 Andrew Lang lecture)
- 1944 Sir Orfeo (an edition of the medieval poem)
- 1947 On Fairy-Stories (essay, very central for understanding Tolkien's views on fastasy)
- 1953 Ofermod, published with the poem The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son
- 1953 Middle English "Losenger"
- 1962 Ancrene Wisse: The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle
- 1963 English and Welsh
- 1966 Jerusalem Bible (contributing translator and lexicographer)
Posthumous publications
See Tolkien research for essays and text fragments by Tolkien published in academic publications and forums.
- 1975 Translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl (poem) and Sir Orfeo
- 1976 The Father Christmas Letters
- 1977 The Silmarillion ISBN 0-618-12698-8 (HM).
- 1979 Pictures by J. R. R. Tolkien
- 1980 Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth ISBN 0-618-15405-1 (HM).
- 1980 Poems and Stories (a compilation of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son, On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle, Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major)
- 1981 The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (eds. Christopher Tolkien and Humphrey Carpenter)
- 1981 The Old English Exodus Text
- 1982 Finn and Hengest: The Fragment and the Episode
- 1982 Mr. Bliss
- 1983 The Monsters and the Critics (an essay collection)
- Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics (1936)
- On Translating Beowulf (1940)
- On Fairy-Stories (1947)
- A Secret Vice (1930)
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- English and Welsh (1955)
- 1983–1996 The History of Middle-Earth:

The Book of Lost Tales 1 (1983)
The Book of Lost Tales 2 (1984)
The Lays of Beleriand (1985)
The Shaping of Middle-earth (1986)
The Lost Road and Other Writings (1987)
The Return of the Shadow (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 1) (1988)
The Treason of Isengard (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 2) (1989)
The War of the Ring (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 3) (1990)
Sauron Defeated (The History of The Lord of the Rings vol. 4, including an edition of The Notion Club Papers) (1992)
Morgoth's Ring (The Later Silmarillion vol. 1) (1993)
The War of the Jewels (The Later Silmarillion vol. 2) (1994)
The Peoples of Middle-earth (1996)

- Index (2002)
- 1995 J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator (a compilation of Tolkien's art)
- 1998 Roverandom
- 2002 Beowulf and the Critics ed. Michael D.C. Drout (Beowulf: the monsters and the critics together with editions of two drafts of the longer essay from which it was condensed.
Audio recordings

- 1967 Poems and Songs of Middle-Earth, Caedmon TC 1231
- 1975 JRR Tolkien Reads and Sings his The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings, Caedmon TC 1477, TC 1478 (based on an August, 1952 recording by George Sayer)
References

- Biography:
- Letters:
- HoME: Tolkien, Christopher (ed.) (12 volumes, 1996-2002), The History of Middle-earth
Notes
# As described by Christopher Tolkien in Hervarar Saga ok Heidreks Konung (Oxford University, Trinity College). B. Litt. thesis. 1953/4. [Year uncertain], The Battle of the Goths and the Huns, in: Saga-Book (University College, London, for the Viking Society for Northern Research) 14, part 3 (1955-6) [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/bibl4.html]
Further reading
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
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See also

- The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings
- Middle-earth
- Works inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien
- Inklings
- Tolkien research
- Tolkien fandom
External links
For story-internal references, see the links sections on Middle-earth and Lord of the Rings. Biographical:
- [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/biography.html Tolkien Biography] (The Tolkien Society)
- [http://www.chem.ox.ac.uk/oxfordtour/tolkientour/index.html J. R. R. Tolkien's Oxford – 360º Photographic Tour]
- [http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/tolkien Tolkien in Birmingham]
- [http://www.virtualbrum.co.uk/tolkien.htm Tolkien Trail – In Birmingham]
- [http://www.nordals.hi.is/Apps/WebObjects/HI.woa/wa/dp?detail=1004508&name=nordals_en_greinar_og_erindi Tolkien and Iceland: the Philology of Envy. Tom Shippey's lecture at the University of Iceland]. Last accessed 17 October 2005. Bibliographical:
- [http://www.tolkienbooks.net/ An Illustrated Tolkien Bibliography]
- [http://www.lotrlibrary.com/ The Lord of the Rings Fanatics Library] Tolkienian Information
- [http://www.tolkienlibrary.com/ The Tolkien Library] Tolkien literature essays, reviews, articles
- [http://archive.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/tolkien_elvish/ 1952 Audio recording of Tolkien reciting a poem in Quenya]
- [http://donh.best.vwh.net/Languages/tolkien1.html A Philologist on Esperanto] by J. R. R. Tolkien Databases/Directories:
- [http://onering.virbius.com/ One Ring: The Complete Guide to Tolkien Online]
- [http://www.xenite.org/talk/tolkien.html J.R.R. Tolkien and Middle-earth Articles and Links] (xenite.org)
- [http://tolkien.slimy.com/ The Tolkien Meta-FAQ] (slimy.com)
- [http://www.thetolkienwiki.org/ The Tolkien Wiki Community]
- [http://tolkiengateway.net Tolkien Gateway] Information on Tolkien, the books, the movies, the music, the languages, etc Societies:
- [http://www.tolkiensociety.org/tolkien/ The Tolkien Society] Derivative art (see also main article):
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The Hobbit

:For other uses, see Hobbit (disambiguation). The Hobbit is a fantasy novel written by J.R.R. Tolkien originally as a children's story in the tradition of the fairy tale. It was first published on September 21, 1937, and is now seen as a prelude to Tolkien's more monumental work The Lord of the Rings (published in 1954 and 1955.) The story, subtitled "There and Back Again", follows the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins as he travels across the lands of Middle-earth with a band of Dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf on a quest to restore a dwarven kingdom and a great treasure stolen by the dragon, Smaug.

The novel

Tolkien recollects in a 1955 letter to W. H. Auden (Letters, no. 163) that, in the late 1920s, when he was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, The Hobbit began when he was marking School Certificate papers, on the back of one of which he wrote the words "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit". He did not go any further than that at the time, although in the following years he drew up Thror's map, outlining the geography of the tale. The tale itself he wrote in the early 1930s, and it was eventually published because he lent it to the Reverend Mother of Cherwell Edge when she was sick with the flu; while the Reverend Mother was in possession of the manuscript, it was seen by the 10-year old son of Sir Stanley Unwin, Rayner Unwin, who wrote such an enthusiastic review of the book that it was published by Allen & Unwin. Tolkien introduced or mentioned characters and places that figured prominently in his legendarium, specifically Elrond and Gondolin, along with elements from Germanic legend. But the decision that the events of The Hobbit could belong to the same universe as The Silmarillion was made only after successful publication, when the publisher asked for a sequel. Accordingly, The Hobbit serves both as an introduction to Middle-Earth and as a link between earlier and later events described in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, respectively. It has been suggested that The Hobbit can be read as a Bildungsroman in which Bilbo matures from an initially insular, superficial, and rather ineffectual person to one who is versatile, brave, self-sufficient, and relied-upon by others when they are in need of assistance. Some have compared his development to the theories of Joseph Campbell on myth and, in particular, the journey of the epic hero. However, Tolkien himself probably did not intend the book to be read in this way. In the foreword to The Lord of the Rings he writes, "I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence." He further claimed that The Lord of the Rings is "neither allegorical nor topical", and it seems safe to assume that The Hobbit was written with the same caveats. The judgement of Bilbo as "superficial" and "ineffectual" seems harsh since he was, according to Tolkien, rather typical of hobbits in general. allegory Although a fairytale, the novel is both complex and sophisticated: it contains many names and words derived from Norse mythology, and central plot elements from the Beowulf epic, it makes use of Anglo-Saxon runes, information on calendars and moon phases, and detailed geographical descriptions that fit well with the accompanying maps. Near the end, the tale takes on epic proportions.

Synopsis

Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit, is smoking in his porchway one day when Gandalf the Wizard visits him. After a lengthy discussion, during which Bilbo uses the phrase "Good Morning" several times, in several different ways, Bilbo, finding himself flustered, invites Gandalf to tea, and goes back inside his hobbit hole with a final "Good Morning". Gandalf scratches a secret mark on Bilbo's front door, which translated means 'Burglar wants a good job, plenty of excitement and reasonable reward'. Thirteen Dwarves (Thorin Oakenshield, Óin, Gloin, Dwalin, Balin, Bifur, Kili, Fili, Bofur, Dori, Bombur, Nori, and Ori) show up and begin excitedly discussing their planned treasure hunt while the hapless Bilbo provides the obligatory hospitality. After the dwarves clean up their mess, a map is produced and Gandalf arranges for Bilbo to get the burglary job—as well as to break the unlucky number 13. The company's quest: kill Smaug, the dragon who seized the Lonely Mountain (Erebor) from the Dwarves' forefathers, and, using a secret door into the mountain, recapture it, dividing the riches within its halls. The next morning, after oversleeping and nearly missing the start of the journey, Bilbo goes off with the Dwarves. They are nearly eaten by three trolls, but Gandalf tricks the trolls into staying up all night whereupon they are turned into stone by the first light of dawn. (The stone trolls appear later in The Lord of the Rings.) In the troll's cave they find some swords. Bilbo acquires Sting, which glows blue in the presence of goblins (another name for Orcs). The party travels to Rivendell where they enjoy the hospitality of the Elves, then proceed eastwards towards the Misty Mountains. There they are ambushed by goblins (Orcs), and carried under the mountain. They run away, and during the escape Bilbo loses the Dwarves. Alone in the dark after running away from the goblins, Bilbo finds a ring on the floor of a cave passage and puts it into his pocket. Continuing down, he finds himself at the shore of an underground lake. Gollum quietly paddles up in his boat, and the two enact the Riddle Game, under the condition that if Bilbo wins, Gollum will show him the way out, but if he loses, Gollum will eat Bilbo. After several riddles, which each manages to answer, Bilbo, whilst fiddling in his pocket unable to think of a riddle, asks himself aloud "What have I got in my pocket?" Gollum thinks this is supposed to be the next riddle, and as it doesn't comply with the rules of the riddle game, demands three guesses; in the end he fails to guess the answer. Bilbo demands his reward, but Gollum refuses and paddles off in his boat to an island in the lake, upon which he lives. After searching around for a while asking aloud "where is it? where's my precious!?" to which Bilbo replies, "I don't know and I don't care, I just want to get out of here", Gollum becomes suspicious, gets in his boat, and starts paddling back across the lake towards Bilbo. Gollum is unable to find the one weapon he could use to betray and kill Bilbo, a magic ring that makes its wearer invisible; driven by rage, Gollum starts to realize the real answer to Bilbo's previous question "What have I got in my pocket?". Bilbo realises his life is in mortal danger and makes his escape down the maze of pitch black tunnels, and Gollum gives chase. Bilbo trips, and finds the ring on his finger. Realising he has no chance to escape his pursuer, he stays where he is and prepares to meet his fate, but Gollum runs right over him. Bilbo realises the ring makes him invisible. He manages to escape past Gollum, who has gone to guard the only exit, and finds his way to the surface where he rejoins the Dwarves. Descending from the Misty Mountains, they survive an encounter with Wargs (wild wolf creatures) by climbing trees. Eagles rescue them. Then they meet Beorn, a man who can transform into a bear. They depart, having rested for several days. Gandalf leaves soon on an errand. The party traverses the great forest Mirkwood, eventually running out of supplies. Gandalf had warned them not to leave the path, but they saw fire and heard singing, so, hopeless, they leave the path to beg food from Wood-elves, only to get lost. They are captured by giant spiders, but Bilbo rescues the Dwarves by becoming invisible and killing many spiders with Sting. Elves then capture the Dwarves and imprison them, but Bilbo manages to sneak into the Elvenking's palace unnoticed using the ring; he then helps the Dwarves escape in barrels floated down the river. After staying for a short period of time at Laketown, the treasure-seekers proceed to the Lonely Mountain. Finding themselves unable to locate the secret door, the company sit down disconsolate on a cliff. Hearing a thrush knocking on a stone, Bilbo looks up just in time to see the last rays of the Sun of Durin's Day, shining on the cliff wall, to magically reveal the secret door (as was foretold by moon letters upon a map that the company was in possession of). Bilbo is sent down to encounter Smaug. The dragon, realising the Company received help from the people of Laketown, sets out to destroy it. However, the thrush that had been knocking on the stone was no ordinary bird but of an ancient race with whom the men of the lake could communicate, and it had heard Bilbo's report to the dwarves that Smaug had a bare patch on his belly that could be used to slaughter him, if only you could get close enough. It conveyed this message to one Bard the Bowman, who seeing the bare patch in the belly of Smaug, despatched the dragon with a single arrow, thus allowing the party of Dwarves to take possession of the treasure. The citizens of Laketown arrive to make historical claims and demand compensation for the help they had rendered, as well as reparations for the damage Smaug inflicted during his attack. They're joined by the Elves, who also demand a share based on historical claims. The Dwarves refuse all negotiations and in turn summon kin from the north to strengthen their position. Seeing no other way to avert a war, Bilbo uses the ring to steal the prized Arkenstone from the Dwarves, which he uses to broker peace. Just as a grudging truce is agreed to, the three armies at the Lonely Mountain (Elves, Men and Dwarves) are attacked by Goblins and Wargs from the Misty Mountains. A bitter battle ensues, named the Battle of Five Armies. Though suffering heavy losses, Elves, Men and Dwarves, with the help of Beorn, prevail. The treasure is apportioned. Bilbo refuses most of the riches, realising he has no way to bring them back home; he nevertheless takes enough with him to make himself a wealthy hobbit and live happily thereafter, unaware of the dangerous nature of his ring.

Alternative version

In the first edition, Gollum willingly bets his magic ring on the outcome of the riddle game. During the writing of The Lord of the Rings Tolkien saw the need to revise this passage, in order to reflect the concept of the One Ring and its powerful hold on Gollum. Tolkien tried many different passages in the chapter that would become chapter 2 of the Lord of the Rings, "The Shadow of the Past". Eventually Tolkien decided a rewrite of The Hobbit was in order, and he sent a sample chapter of this rewrite ("Riddles in the Dark") to his publishers. Initially he heard nothing further, but when he was sent galley proofs of a new edition he learned to his surprise the new chapter had been incorporated as the result of a misunderstanding. Tolkien explained the two different versions in the introduction of The Lord of the Rings, as well as inside "The Shadow of the Past", as a "lie" that Bilbo made up, probably because of the One Ring's influence on him, and which he originally wrote down in his book. Inside The Lord of the Rings, Bilbo finally confesses the real story at the Council of Elrond, although Gandalf had deduced the truth earlier. As Tolkien presented himself as the translator of the supposedly historic Red Book of Westmarch, where Bilbo and Frodo's stories were recorded, he further explained the two differing stories in The Hobbit by stating he had originally used Bilbo's original story, but later retranslated the work with the "true story" recorded by Frodo. This first edition also mentions "gnomes", an earlier word Tolkien used to refer to the second kindred of the High Elves — the Ñoldor (or "Deep Elves"). Tolkien thought that "gnome", being derived from the Greek gnosis (knowledge), was a good name for the Ñoldor he created to be the wisest of the other Elves. But with its English connotations of a small, secretive, and unattractive creature (see garden gnome) Tolkien removed it from later editions. He made other minor changes in order to conform the narrative to events in The Lord of the Rings and in the ideas he was developing for the Quenta Silmarillion. However this still doesn't fit perfectly: even revised, The Hobbit is so much different in tone that it sometimes seems to belong in another universe from other Middle-earth works. Examples include the following:
- Anachronisms: Bilbo has a clock. Many artists like John Howe prefer to omit it from their paintings. Bilbo also is mentioned to have matches for his pipe. In the world of Lord of the Rings matches had not yet been invented and all use flints.
- The Trolls have English first and last names, like fairy-tale characters.
- Lighthearted use of "magic": when Bilbo tries to steal a purse from the Trolls, the purse shouts.
- Elves appear either as silly mischiefs (Rivendell) or hostile (Mirkwood).
- Orcs are still called Goblins, and are more like bogeymen than man-eating humanoid warriors.
- Gandalf mentions Radagast as his cousin. (Then again, both Gandalf and Radagast are angelic Maiar spirits, and thus in a sense are "related", both being children of the thought of God.)
- The extensive mentioning (and brief appearance) of Giants. Giants were never developed in Tolkien's other works, but since they should exist and possibly take a grand part in the past and upcoming Wars, they are never mentioned again. Even if Giants are seen as a kind of large Trolls, they are hard to justify, as trolls are described as either incredibly stupid or incredibly evil: quite unlike the Stone Giants of The Hobbit.
- The comical allusion to Vita Sackville-West, who had been involved in a sensational court case over an English estate in the decade before The Hobbit was written. Some of the tone differences can be explained by accepting Bilbo as the author of the work: Bilbo wrote the story of his journeys to recount them to the children of Hobbiton and therefore changed the story somewhat. Apparent major differences such as the different perception of the Ring can also be explained by Bilbo's lacking knowledge of these matters.

Similarities to Beowulf

During his time as a professor at the University of Oxford Tolkien studied Anglo-Saxon. One of the Anglo-Saxon pieces of literature he studied is the epic poem Beowulf, about which he wrote essays such as The Monsters and the Critics. Interesting parallels can be found between The Hobbit and Beowulf. The plots of the two stories are very similar. In both of them a party of 13 sets out to seek satisfaction for a crime committed by a dragon. Both parties contain a thief, which in The Hobbit is Bilbo, who steals a cup from the sleeping dragon's hoard by using a secret passage. Both dragons then awake from their deep slumber and cause terror and destruction. Both dragons are well protected by their armour, a natural one in Beowulf and one made of gold and diamonds in The Hobbit, but finally they are killed. But not only the plots share similarities, both main characters, Bilbo and Beowulf, share characteristics. Both heroes defy their enemies with their supernatural power, which in Bilbo's case is the ring and in Beowulf's case is his supernatural strength. While Beowulf has the help of God, Bilbo often prevails because of his sheer luck which may or may not be due to some kind of divine providence. Both get separated from their group, Bilbo in the mountains, Beowulf when he is captured by Grendel's mother. Additionally some elements of Anglo-Saxon culture can be found. In both books a king, which in Anglo-Saxon sometimes is called ring- or gold-giver, rewards his warriors with treasure and war gear. In Anglo-Saxon culture, poems are important, as they contain the people's history and they are sung by scops. Two such songs are found in Beowulf and more in The Hobbit. Tolkien's dwarves mirror Anglo-Saxon society, both in their warrior nature and in their desire for jewelry and war gear (albeit in an exaggerated way). The dwarven writing system as illustrated uses the Anglo-Saxon runic alphabets.

Adaptations and influences

The Hobbit has been adapted for other media. BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Hobbit radio drama, adapted by Michael Kilgarriff, in eight parts (4 hours) from September to November 1968, which starred Anthony Jackson as narrator, Paul Daneman as Bilbo and Heron Carvic as Gandalf. An animated version of the story debuted as a television movie in the United States in 1977. In March 2005, Peter Jackson, director of highly successful film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, stated he wished to film The Hobbit in four years' time (if the rights can be secured by then). Middle-earth has been featured in songs notably by Enya and the Brobdingnagian Bards. Led Zeppelin's songs "Misty Mountain Hop" and "Ramble On" both contain references to Tolkien's mystical world. For The Hobbit itself, "The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins", performed by Leonard Nimoy as part of his 1968 Two Sides of Leonard Nimoy album, is the most pertinent because it recounts the book's storyline in its two minutes. The ballad's music video became a minor Internet meme in the early 2000s when The Lord of the Rings movies were released. Another well-known reference is Blind Guardian's