Who wrote the fantasy novel "The Hobbit"?

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote the fantasy novel “The Hobbit.”

Published in 1937 as “The Hobbit, or There and Back Again,” the book follows Bilbo Baggins, a comfort-loving hobbit drawn into an adventure with the wizard Gandalf and Thorin Oakenshield’s company of dwarves. Their quest is to reclaim the Lonely Mountain and its treasure from the dragon Smaug.

Tolkien was an English writer, philologist, and professor at the University of Oxford. His professional interest in languages and Germanic and medieval literature strongly influenced the names, histories, and invented languages of Middle-earth. He also illustrated the original edition himself. The novel began as a children’s fantasy, but its world-building helped lead to Tolkien’s much larger sequel, “The Lord of the Rings.”

The initials in Tolkien’s name matter: “J. R. R.” stands for John Ronald Reuel. The character Bilbo, the dragon Smaug, and the dwarves of Thorin’s company belong to Tolkien’s Middle-earth, not to the later worlds created by authors such as C. S. Lewis or J. K. Rowling.