Today in History - J.RR Tolkien's " The Hobbit" was first published

Few children's books have provided as much pleasure as this one.    It was originally published in England on September 21, 1937.  Its very first printing was for One thousand and five hundred copies.  Today 'The Hobbit' is celebrating its 69th anniversary.  This all began one day when Tolkien was marking School Certificate papers; on the back of one of them, he wrote the words "In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit".   At the time he did not go any further than that, although in the forthcoming years he drew up Thror's map, and outlined the geography of the tale. The story actually was completed in the early 1930's.   Eventually it was published because he lent it to to some people outside of the family, including C.S. Lewis.  All his friends encouraged him and eventually he published with Allen & Unwin.  This book is now recognized as an international best seller.  It has  sold over ninty million copies and has been translated into at least forty languages. C. S. Lewis wrote in the Times & Times Literary Supplement  the very first rave review when it appeared in 1937, and placed it in class with 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' ; as a result the book was immediately successful. 

(THe information was compiled not from wikipedia but derived from 3 English news reports.)