Which publishing house first published J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit?

George Allen & Unwin first published J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

The British publishing house issued The Hobbit on 21 September 1937. Stanley Unwin, the company’s chairman, had his ten-year-old son read the manuscript and give a favorable report before accepting it for publication.

The book became a major commercial and critical success. Its popularity led Tolkien’s publisher to request a sequel, which eventually developed into The Lord of the Rings rather than a simple children’s adventure.

In the United States, Houghton Mifflin published an American edition in 1938. That later edition is often remembered alongside the British one, but George Allen & Unwin was the original publisher. The company also published Tolkien’s later Middle-earth books during his lifetime.