"The Hobbit's" first review

"The Hobbit's" first review

Sep 24 2017

On the 80th anniversary of the publication of The Hobbit, Lithub looks back on C. S Lewis' review of his old friend J. R. R. Tolkien's first novel:

"...For it must be understood that this is a children’s book only in the sense that the first of many readings can be undertaken in the nursery. Alice is read gravely by children and with laughter by grown ups; The Hobbit, on the other hand, will be funnier to its youngest readers, and only years later, at a tenth or a twentieth reading, will they begin to realise what deft scholarship and profound reflection have gone to make everything in it so ripe, so friendly, and in its own way so true. Prediction is dangerous: but The Hobbit may well prove a classic.”

C. S. Lewis, The Times Literary Supplement, October 2, 1937 (Paris Review link)

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