What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien’s publisher for the first edition of The Hobbit?

George Allen & Unwin was J.R.R. Tolkien’s publisher for the first edition of The Hobbit.

The London publishing house released the book in 1937 after Tolkien’s manuscript reached the attention of Stanley Unwin, whose young son reportedly responded positively to it. The firm’s decision helped bring Bilbo Baggins’s adventure to a wide reading public and began a long publishing relationship with Tolkien.

George Allen & Unwin also published The Lord of the Rings in three volumes between 1954 and 1955. Its chairman, Sir Stanley Unwin, became an important figure in Tolkien’s publishing history. The company later became part of larger publishing groups, but its original name is the historically precise answer for The Hobbit’s first edition.

Readers sometimes name a later American publisher when recalling Tolkien editions. Houghton Mifflin handled American publication, but it was not the British publisher of the 1937 first edition.