Prequel to LordOfTheRings. Smaller and easier to read.

''Really? I've always found it harder to read. LoTR just flows ... where TheHobbit plods.''

''LotR is very sticky at the beginning, but picks up later, I find...'' - AbbeeHugHes

JrrTolkien wrote the Hobbit off the top of his head and from the beginning to the end, intending to simulate the ultimate traditional fireside children's oral adventure tale. But along the way Bilbo the Hobbit crossed the Hithaeglir (Misty Mountains) from west to east, the same mountain range that the elves in Tolkien's poetry (written to simulate a religion and mythology) had crossed from east to west thousands of years before.

When Bilbo encountered a certain gold item under those mountains, Tolkien had to wonder where such a powerful heirloom could have come from.  Hence, the story of the adult epic LordOfTheRings arose via TriangulateToDesign (again essentially written by the seat of the pants).

When Bilbo got it, the Ring was not yet adapted to its new owner. Rings have a very high "conservation of angular momentum"; they don't change their mind until after many years.  When Gandalf met Bilbo for Bilbo's 111th birthday, Gandalf worried because Bilbo hadn't aged.  But the Ring's bond was probably still weak up to that point.

This is based on Tolkien's letters describing his authoring practices. He made up the plot without letting himself try to guess too far ahead, then edited and retyped for ten years.

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JRR Tolkien states in a letter that he began his world of elves (and their languages) in 1915.  He created the Hobbit in the 1930s to amuse his children, using Middle Earth as a convenient backdrop. --IanRae

''Elves and orcs and dwarves and so on existed in faerie tales long before Tolkien. Did "hobbits" have any prior existence, or are they entire JRR's idea?''

IIRC, Tolkien was the first to use the specific word "hobbit" and their exact form in Tolkien's books, but they were based heavily on existing words and concepts. -- BrentNewhall

When Tolkien wrote "In a hole in the ground, there lived a Hobbit", he had no idea what a Hobbit was, or any foundational myth. He was just playing with philology, and word origins. If an English-speaking race arose to build holes and live in them, they would call themselves "Hole-Builder", and over time that would decay into "Hobbit". (The fully un-translated word is "Kuduk".) --PhlIp

Elves and dwarves have existed for centuries. But in earlier times there was no clear distinction between them and both tended towards cruelty and evil. So while Tolkien didn't invent the ''word'' 'elf', I'm pretty sure he invented ''elves''. That is, our modern conception of them. I wonder when orcs arose. Somehow, I don't think you need an evil race of elf-haters when elves are themselves evil. So I'd bet that JRR invented them as well. And if not, then I recall that he invented the distinction between orcs and goblins.