Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard, Gandalf, and a company of thirteen dwarves arrive on his doorstep one day to whisk him away on an unexpected journey ‘there and back again’. They have a plot to raid the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and very dangerous dragon…Written for J.R.R. Tolkien’s own children, The Hobbit was publishedon 21 September 1937. With a beautiful cover design, a handful of black & white drawings and two maps by the author himself, the book became an instant success and was reprinted shortly afterwards with five colour plates.