The Hobbit

Summary

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again tells how Bilbo Baggins, a comfortable, respectable hobbit of Bag-End under the Hill, is drawn into an adventure he never wanted. The wizard Gandalf marks his door, and thirteen dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield arrive for an unexpected party. They plan to travel to the Lonely Mountain, Erebor, and recover the treasure of Thorin's grandfather Thror, King under the Mountain, from the dragon Smaug, who took it long ago and destroyed the town of Dale. Bilbo is hired as their burglar. On the road the company is nearly eaten by three trolls, rests with Elrond at Rivendell, where the moon-letters on Thror's map are read, and is captured by goblins in the Misty Mountains. Separated in the dark, Bilbo finds a ring on the tunnel floor, plays a riddle game with the creature Gollum, and escapes invisible. After a rescue by the Eagles from goblins and wolves, the company shelters with Beorn, a skin-changer who can take the shape of a bear, and then enters the dark forest of Mirkwood. There Bilbo, growing in courage and resource, frees the dwarves from giant spiders with his sword Sting and later from the dungeons of the Elvenking by floating them out in barrels. At Lake-town (Esgaroth) the townsfolk welcome Thorin as the heir of the old songs. Bilbo finds the secret door on Durin's Day, goes down the tunnel alone, steals a cup, and in a second visit trades riddling talk with Smaug and spots a bare patch on the dragon's jeweled breast. Enraged, Smaug attacks Lake-town, where the bowman Bard, told of the weak spot by an old thrush, kills him with his black arrow. The men of the lake and the Elvenking's army then come to the Mountain to claim a share of the treasure, and Thorin, gripped by love of the gold, refuses. Bilbo secretly gives Bard the Arkenstone, the heart of the hoard, to force a bargain; Thorin casts him out. War is averted only when goblins and wolves attack, and dwarves, elves, men, the Eagles and Beorn unite in the Battle of Five Armies. The mortally wounded Thorin makes peace with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo returns home with a modest share of treasure to find his goods being auctioned, his reputation gone, and his happiness entire. Tolkien began the story around 1930 for his children; George Allen & Unwin published it in London on 21 September 1937 with his own illustrations and maps, and Houghton Mifflin issued it in the United States in 1938.

Top Lessons

• Courage in an ordinary person

  Bilbo begins as a hobbit who wants nothing but his armchair and his teacups, yet his bravest act is walking alone down the tunnel toward Smaug. Tolkien shows courage growing through small decisions, from the spiders of Mirkwood to the barrels, until it becomes part of who Bilbo is.

• The sickness of hoarded gold

  Smaug lies on gold he cannot use, and Thorin, once inside the Mountain, comes close to becoming like him. The book contrasts that grasping with Bard's fairness, Dain's generosity, and Bilbo's willingness to give away the Arkenstone for peace.

• Pity and mercy

  In the dark under the Misty Mountains Bilbo has the chance to kill Gollum and does not, moved by a sudden pity for the creature's misery. The scene, sharpened in Tolkien's 1951 revision, plants the idea of mercy at the very moment Bilbo gains his greatest advantage.

• Home and the road

  The subtitle There and Back Again names the shape of the book: Bilbo leaves home, is changed by the wide world, and comes back. He returns to find his spoons missing and his neighbours suspicious, but he is content, and the Shire looks different to him now.

Verified Quotes

Medical Lens

Medicine is not a concern of the book, but a few strands interest a clinical reader. Hunger is a real hardship in Mirkwood, where the company runs out of food, Bombur falls into an enchanted sleep after touching the black stream, and the dwarves stumble toward the elves' feasting lights. The treasure's hold on Thorin is described as a bewitchment that grows the longer he stays with the hoard; it can be read as a fable of fixation and possessiveness, though Tolkien frames it morally and mythically, not medically. Thorin's death from battle wounds, and the deaths of Fili and Kili, give the book a single grave deathbed scene in which reconciliation matters more than cure. Bilbo's comic misery in the rain without a pocket-handkerchief early on, and the heavy cold he catches after the barrel ride, are a light thread of ordinary illness.

• Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders

  Food runs out in Mirkwood; Bombur falls into the enchanted stream and sleeps, dreaming of feasts.

• Chapters 15-16

  Thorin, inside the Mountain, will not share the treasure and searches obsessively for the Arkenstone.

• Chapter 18: The Return Journey

  Thorin lies wounded in a tent after the battle and makes peace with Bilbo before dying.