21st September 1937: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien is first published

On the 21st September 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit was first published in the United Kingdom. Although it has remained in print ever since, Tolkien made a number of revisions to the text over the course of the next thirty years to bring plot elements into line with the storyline of the subsequent Lord of the Rings, and also to retain copyright in the USA. Tolkien was an academic linguist who was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxfo...