The History of the Hobbit I. - Mr. Baggins

J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit was first published on 21 September 1937. Like its successor, The Lord ofthe Rings, it is a story that "grew in the telling", and many characters and story threads present in the published text were completely different when Tolkien first read his story aloud to his young sons as part of their "fireside reads". The History ofThe Hobbit presents for the first time, in two volumes, the complete text of the original manuscript of The Hobbit, and this is accompanied by John D. Rateliff's lively and informative commentary which looks at the story behind Tolkien's tale and discusses the many themes contained within. As well as: recording the numerous changes made to the story both before and after publicatíon, it examines - chapter-by-chapter - why those changes were rnade and how they reflect Tolkien's ever-growing concept of Middle-earth.