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     Chapter I
     An Unexpected Party
     In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet
hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a
hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
     It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a
shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a
tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without
smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided
with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats -
the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going
fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill - The Hill, as
all the people for many miles round called it - and many little round
doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No
going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries
(lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes),
kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the
same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going
in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round
windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to
the river.
     This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins.
The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out
of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because
most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures
or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on
any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how
a Baggins had an adventure, found himself doing and saying things
altogether unexpected. He may have
     the neighbours’ respect, but he gained-well, you will see whether he
gained anything in the end.
     The mother of our particular hobbit ... what is a hobbit? I suppose
hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare
and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a
little
     There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday
sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large
stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like
elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be at
in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and
yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles
and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is
curly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh
deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a
day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with. As I was
saying, the mother of this hobbit - of Bilbo Baggins, that is - was
the fabulous Belladonna Took, one of the three remarkable daughters of
the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived across The Water, the