Bilbo Baggins
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Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings, and the fictional narrator of many of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. The Hobbit is selected by the wizard Gandalf to help Thorin and his party of Dwarves to reclaim their ancestral home and treasure, which has been seized by the dragon Smaug. Bilbo sets out in The Hobbit timid and comfort-loving, and through his adventures grows to become a useful and resourceful member of the quest.
J. R. R. Tolkien's illustration of Bilbo in his comfortable hobbit-hole, Bag End
Lobelia Sackville-Baggins's desire to acquire 'Bag End', Bilbo's hobbit-hole, has been compared to Vita Sackville-West's frustrated desire to inherit Knole House (pictured).
Bilbo's character and adventures match many details of William Morris's expedition in Iceland. Cartoon of Morris riding a pony by his travelling companion Edward Burne-Jones (1870)
The illustrations of Bilbo in the 1976 Russian translation of The Hobbit were based on the actor Yevgeny Leonov (shown here on a postage stamp).
J. R. R. Tolkien
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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Tolkien in the 1920s
1892 Christmas card with a coloured photo of the Tolkien family in Bloemfontein, sent to relatives in Birmingham, England
Birmingham Oratory, where Tolkien was a parishioner and altar boy (1902–1911)
King Edward's School in Birmingham, where Tolkien was a pupil (1900–1902, 1903–1911)