The Hobbit was first published in 1937, before The Lord of the Rings.
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, was published by George Allen & Unwin on 21 September 1937. It follows Bilbo Baggins, a home-loving hobbit who joins Thorin Oakenshield and a company of Dwarves on a quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain.
The book began as a children’s fantasy adventure, but it introduced characters, places, and objects that later became central to Tolkien’s larger mythology. These include Gandalf, Gollum, Rivendell, and the ring Bilbo finds beneath the Misty Mountains.
The Lord of the Rings grew into a much larger and darker work, published in three volumes between 1954 and 1955. The Silmarillion was published posthumously in 1977, edited by Christopher Tolkien, so it cannot be the 1937 title.