In one volume for the first time, this revised and updated examination of how J.R.R.Tolkien came to write his original masterpiece `The Hobbit` includes his complete unpublished draft version of the story, together with notes and illustrations by Tolkien himself. For the first time in one volume, The History of the Hobbit presents the complete unpublished text of the original manuscript of J.R.R.Tolkien`s The Hobbit, accompanied by John Rateliff`s lively and informative account of how the book came to be written and published. As well as recording the numerous changes made to the story both before and after publication, it examines -- chapter-by-chapter -- why those changes were made and how they reflect Tolkien`s ever-growing concept of Middle-earth. The Hobbit was first published on 21 September 1937. Like its successor, The Lord of the Rings, it is a story that "grew in the telling", and many characters and story threads in the published text are completely different from what...