The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (1937) by J.R.R. Tolkien follows Bilbo Baggins, a comfort-loving hobbit recruited by the wizard Gandalf and a company of dwarves to reclaim their mountain home from the dragon Smaug. It is the first public introduction to Middle-earth and the prequel to The Lord of the Rings.
Introduced Middle-earth to the world in accessible form; established the template for the reluctant hero's journey in modern fantasy; its narrative simplicity conceals mythological structures rooted in Norse and Anglo-Saxon legend and Tolkien's theology of sub-creation.
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