What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s first published fictional work?

The Hobbit was J.R.R. Tolkien’s first published fictional work.

George Allen & Unwin published The Hobbit in 1937. Tolkien had already published scholarly writing, including his 1925 edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but The Hobbit was his first published book of imaginative fiction. It established many elements later associated with Middle-earth.

The story follows Bilbo Baggins as he joins Thorin Oakenshield’s company on a quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug. It also introduces the One Ring, although its significance in the first edition was different from the role it later received in The Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien had written and circulated other imaginative texts, including material connected with his mythology, before 1937. That history can cause confusion, but The Hobbit is the first of his fictional works to appear as a published book.