TH: How much of the world of LOTR was planned when Tolkien wrote the Hobbit?

[Bobby]

I read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy years ago as a kid. I'm just now re-reading The Hobbit (my first Sword & Laser book pick that I'm reading at the same time...yay!).

I'm finding it interesting the small references to geography, history and culture that Tolkien has in the Hobbit. I don't think this is a spoiler as this is in the first few pages, but Gandalf mentions looking for a capital 'W' and 'H' Warrior and Hero, and speaks of the "Necromancer".

Now, it's been a while since I read the trilogy and the movies are obviously clouding my judgment, but I wonder how much these characters & references carry over. I know Tolkien was infamous for his prolific world building, but I wonder if The Hobbit was built in a more simplistic world initially that was then expounded upon in the trilogy and as he began creating his languages, histories, etc. It seems like The Hobbit was setup in a world with some details fleshed out (Dwarven history, for example), but other things left fairly vague. Not a criticism by any stretch, just an observation and curious if others noticed it as well.

On a side note, I'm enjoying Tolkien's style of including himself the narrator in his telling of the story. It's unique in most fantasy, and feels a touch dated, but also makes it light hearted and fun and somehow keeps it all from being too heavy & prosaic.

[Sean]

The mythology of Middle Earth was already well developed by the time Tolkien wrote The Hobbit -- he'd started The Silmarillion while serving in WWI -- and he decided to throw in some references, not as a serious attempt to make The Hobbit part of the world but as in-jokes for his friends in the Inklings. Only after The Hobbit proved successful enough to warrant a sequel did Tolkien go back and develop the mythology that connects events of the Silmarillion to the Third Age, which is why the world-building in The Hobbit focuses on either truly ancient history or stuff related directly to the dwarves -- there aren't references to Gondor and Rohan or Lothlorien or the Rangers, which were all developed later.

[Daran]

And almost all of the direct references come from the rewrite Tolkien did in the late 40's to bring The Hobbit more directly into the world of Lord of the Rings. So even some of the stuff in The Hobbit didn't exist when it was first written.