 The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien read by Rob English Chapter 1 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 onto a tube-shaped hole like a tunnel a very comfortable tunnel without smoke with paneled 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 call 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 bedrooms, 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 very 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 neighbour's 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've 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 are 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 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 Bella Donna Tooke one of the three remarkable daughters of the old Tooke head of the... Sample complete Ready to continue?