J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel about Bilbo Baggins is The Hobbit.
The book was first published in the United Kingdom by George Allen & Unwin on 21 September 1937. Its full title is The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. The story follows Bilbo, a comfort-loving hobbit who leaves home with Thorin Oakenshield and a company of dwarves to reclaim treasure from the dragon Smaug.
The Hobbit began as a children’s fantasy adventure, but it introduced important elements that Tolkien later connected to the larger mythology of Middle-earth. These include the One Ring, Gollum, the Necromancer, and the history of the dwarves’ lost kingdom.
Readers sometimes treat The Hobbit as simply the first volume of The Lord of the Rings. It was published earlier and has a lighter narrative style, though the later trilogy expands and darkens the significance of several ideas first presented in it.