etween 1932 and 1953, Professor John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, of Oxford, England, translated four volumes compiled by the renowned Hobbits Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, written during the Third Age of Middle Earth, far longer ago than the Celtic, Germanic and Icelandic manuscripts Professor Tolkien was used to deciphering. The result wasThe Hobbit, and readers have never beenthe same since. In 1954, seventeen years after The Hobbit first appeared,...

Bilbo Baggins continues on in his journey with the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves, led by Thorin Oakenshield, on an epic quest to reclaim their lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor.

It is well known that J.R.R. Tolkien published The Hobbit in 1937 and The Lord of the Rings in 1954–5. What may be less known is that he continued to write about Middle-earth in the decades that followed, right up until the years before his death in 1973. For him, Middle-earth was part of an entire world to be explored, and the writings in The Nature of Middle-earth reveal the journeys that he took as he sought to better understand his unique creation....

J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved novel The hobbit has deep roots in European folklore, mythology, and language. As a reader's introduction to Tolkien's Middle-earth, it contains references to the ancient history of this imaginary world which, though rarely explained, contribute greatly to the effect of Tolkien's art. This revised and expanded edition of The annotated hobbit unobtrusively and authoritatively illuminates the novel's antecedents and curiosities....