The Annotated Hobbit

by J.R.R. Tolkien

  The Hobbit is the first novel by British writer JRR Tolkien which was published in 1937. JRR Tolkien first created the story for his children between the 1920s and 1930. This is the first time he has dealt with the 'Middle-earth', a universe he has been working on for more than twenty years.

   The story of Bilbo the Hobbit is centered on his eponymous character: Bilbo Baggins. The latter lives peacefully until the magician Gandalf disturbs his little quiet life by offering to accompany him on a dangerous adventure with thirteen dwarves – their objective is to reach the Lonely Mountain in order to recover the gold kept by the dragon Smaug for more than 200 years. The thematic of race is the one that particularly caught my attention.

   The distinctions among Tolkien's nonexistent races are a focal point of the novel, especially in its second half – mythical people, dwarves, trolls, and trolls vary from each other physically, mentally, and ethically. These characteristic racial contrasts restrict the likelihood of individual decision however make moral qualifications simple to keep up. All trolls are insidious, for instance, and all mythical beings are great. The thought of races having distinctive good characteristics is reflected in the original's concept of nature. The great races are depicted as being in concordance with nature, while the shrewd races are portrayed as being inconsistent with it—subsequently the falcons' choice to help the mythical people against the trolls.                                                

  It is also known that Bilbo the Hobbit has had many adaptations to theater, television, video games and cinema. We note in particular the famous film trilogy of Peter Jackson, theatrical release between 2012 and 2014 under the title The Hobbit.

   J. R. R. Tolkien's novel was awarded the New York Herald Tribune's Best Children's Book Award in the year following its publication. The writer then proposed a continuation to the adventures of the hobbit with the three volumes of the series of the Lord of the rings.