{"product_id":"pre-lord-of-the-ringsisbn-9780345534835","title":"Pre-Lord of the Rings","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe enchanting prequel to The Lord of the Rings, \u003ci\u003eThe Hobbit\u003c\/i\u003e is the classic fantasy that inspired Peter Jackson’s major motion picture trilogy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim the hoard of gold stolen from them by the evil dragon Smaug, Gandalf the wizard suggests an unlikely accomplice: Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming Hobbit dwelling in peaceful Hobbiton.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Along the way, the company faces trolls, goblins, giant spiders, and worse. But as they journey from the wonders of Rivendell to the terrors of Mirkwood and beyond, Bilbo will find that there is more to him than anyone—himself included—ever dreamed. Unexpected qualities of courage and cunning, and a love of adventure, propel Bilbo toward his great destiny . . . a destiny that waits in the dark caverns beneath the Misty Mountains, where a twisted creature known as Gollum jealously guards a precious magic ring.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e© New Line Productions, Inc. All rights reserved. THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY and the names of the characters, items, events and places therein are trademarks of The Saul Zaentz Company d\/b\/a Middle-earth Enterprises under license to New Line Productions, Inc. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien\u003c\/b\u003e was born on January 3, 1892, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. After serving in World War I, he embarked upon a distinguished academic career and was recognized as one of the finest philologists in the world. He was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, a fellow of Pembroke College, and a fellow of Merton College until his retirement in 1959. He is, however, beloved throughout the world as the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic works as \u003ci\u003eThe Hobbit \u003c\/i\u003eand\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eThe Lord of the Rings. He died on September 2, 1973, at the age of eighty-one.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAN UNEXPECTED PARTY \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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,  and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost  the neighbours’ respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything  in the end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 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 people, about half our height, and smaller  than the bearded dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. 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 fat 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 famous Belladonna Took,  one of the three remarkable daughters of the Old Took, head of the hobbits who lived  across The Water, the small river that ran at the foot of The Hill. It was often  said (in other families) that long ago one of the Took ancestors must have taken  a fairy wife. That was, of course, absurd, but certainly there was still something  not entirely hobbitlike about them, and once in a while members of the Took-clan  would go and have adventures. They discreetly disappeared, and the family hushed  it up; but the fact remained that the Tooks were not as respectable as the Bagginses,  though they were undoubtedly richer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not that Belladonna Took ever had any adventures  after she became Mrs Bungo Baggins. Bungo, that was Bilbo’s father, built the most  luxurious hobbit-hole for her (and partly with her money) that was to be found either  under The Hill or over The Hill or across The Water, and there they remained to the  end of their days. Still it is probable that Bilbo, her only son, although he looked  and behaved exactly like a second edition of his solid and comfortable father, got  something a bit queer in his make-up from the Took side, something that only waited  for a chance to come out. The chance never arrived, until Bilbo Baggins was grown  up, being about fifty years old or so, and living in the beautiful hobbit-hole built  by his father, which I have just described for you, until he had in fact apparently  settled down immovably.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet  of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still  numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast  smoking an enormous long wooden pipe that reached nearly down to his woolly toes  (neatly brushed)—Gandalf came by. Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what  I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear,  you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale. Tales and adventures sprouted  up all over the place wherever he went, in the most extraordinary fashion. He had  not been down that way under The Hill for ages and ages, not since his friend the  Old Took died, in fact, and the hobbits had almost forgotten what he looked like.  He had been away over The Hill and across The Water on businesses of his own since  they were all small hobbit-boys and hobbit-girls.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All that the unsuspecting Bilbo  saw that morning was an old man with a staff. He had a tall pointed blue hat, a long  grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist,  and immense black boots.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Good morning!” said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was  shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long  bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “What do you  mean?” he said. “Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning  whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning  to be good on?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “All of them at once,” said Bilbo. “And a very fine morning for  a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain. If you have a pipe about you, sit  down and have a fill of mine! There’s no hurry, we have all the day before us!” Then  Bilbo sat down on a seat by his door, crossed his legs, and blew out a beautiful  grey ring of smoke that sailed up into the air without breaking and floated away  over The Hill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Very pretty!” said Gandalf. “But I have no time to blow smoke-rings  this morning. I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging,  and it’s very difficult to find anyone.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “I should think so—in these parts! We are  plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!  Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr Baggins,  and stuck one thumb behind his braces, and blew out another even bigger smoke-ring.  Then he took out his morning letters, and began to read, pretending to take no more  notice of the old man. He had decided that he was not quite his sort, and wanted  him to go away. But the old man did not move. He stood leaning on his stick and gazing  at the hobbit without saying anything, till Bilbo got quite uncomfortable and even  a little cross.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Good morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here,  thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that  the conversation was at an end.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!”  said Gandalf. “Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won’t be  good till I move off.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Not at all, not at all, my dear sir! Let me see, I don’t  think I know your name?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Yes, yes, my dear sir—and I do know your name, Mr Bilbo  Baggins. And you do know my name, though you don’t remember that I belong to it.  I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me! To think that I should have lived to be good-morninged  by Belladonna Took’s son, as if I was selling buttons at the door!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Gandalf, Gandalf!  Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond  studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow  who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants  and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows’ sons? Not the man  that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took  used to have them on Midsummer’s Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies  and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!” You  will notice already that Mr Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe,  also that he was very fond of flowers. “Dear me!” he went on. “Not the Gandalf who  was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad  adventures? Anything from climbing trees to visiting elves—or sailing in ships, sailing  to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter—I mean, you used to upset  things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea  you were still in business.”","brand":"Del Rey","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303541821669,"sku":"NP9780345534835","price":8.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780345534835.jpg?v=1730754613","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/pre-lord-of-the-ringsisbn-9780345534835","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}