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In 1958, Tolkien wrote the following in a letter to a fan, Deborah Webster: "I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much."

In 1936, publisher Stanley Unwin was deciding whether to publish The Hobbit. To help assess its popularity with children, he gave the manuscript to his youngest son, Rayner, for his opinion. This he often did, paying Rayner a standard fee of one shilling per report. Douglas Anderson tells how, with "the superiority of a ten-year-old," the boy wrote: "This book … is good and should appeal to all children between the ages of 5 and 9." Rayner Unwin (1925-2000) went on to become Tolkien's principal publisher.

The Hobbit was born one summer afternoon, likely in 1930. Tolkien, then a young professor, sat in his home office correcting examinations: "One of the candidates had mercifully left one of the pages with no writing on it, which is the best thing that can possibly happen to an examiner, and I wrote on it: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' Names always generate a story in my mind: eventually I thought I'd better find out what hobbits were like." (Seen here is Tolkien's original cover.)

Christopher Tolkien once interrupted his father as he read a chapter of The Hobbit to the Tolkien children in his study: "Last time, you said Bilbo's front door was blue, and you said Thorin had a golden tassel on his hood, but you've just said that Bilbo's front door was green, and the tassel on Thorin's hood was silver." Their father let out an exasperated exclamation—but quickly strode across the room to make a note.

Tolkien once received a letter from a man in London whose name was Sam Gamgee (the name of Frodo's loyal hobbit companion in The Lord of the Rings). In his responding letter, Tolkien admitted that what he really dreaded was getting a communication from S. Gollum. In fact, he had picked up the name Sam Gamgee in Sarehole, his rural childhood home. There, a local man named Samson Gamgee had become a household name for a surgical dressing he had invented.

"Possession" is a unifying theme in Tolkien's imagined world. The fallen Melkor wanted to have God's power of creation. The pathetic Gollum was twisted by his possessive love of his "Precious." No one epitomized this quality more than Smaug. The hobbit's dwarf companion Thorin could not hide his contempt: "Dragons … guard their plunder … and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't make a thing for themselves. …"

Tolkien once told a reporter that hobbits were English, implying the Shire was England. When asked what was east of Rhun and south of Harad, Tolkien continued, "Rhun is the Elvish word for east. Asia, China, Japan, and all the things which people in the West regard as far away. And south of Harad is Africa, the hot countries." The reporter probed, "That makes Middle-earth Europe, doesn't it?" Tolkien answered, "Yes, of course—Northwestern Europe … where my imagination comes from." (He later denied that he had said this.)

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