J.R.R. Tolkien’s first published novel about Middle-earth was The Hobbit.
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, was published by George Allen & Unwin on 21 September 1937. It follows Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who joins Thorin Oakenshield and a company of dwarves on a quest to reclaim treasure from the dragon Smaug.
Tolkien originally wrote the story for his children, but it attracted a much wider readership. Its success led the publisher to ask for a sequel, which eventually developed into the much larger work known as The Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit is sometimes described as the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, but that is incorrect. It is a separate novel, written in a lighter storytelling style and published sixteen years before the first part of the later trilogy.