Happy Birthday to The Hobbit

On this day, in 1937, the world first read the words "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." From that small beginning, first scrawled on the back of a page used for a different purpose, came books that have been a part of my life and the lives of millions of others. And as we get closer to the release of the movie, more and more people will be introduced to the unique vision and storytelling abilities of JRR Tolkien.


( wonderful pictures and more random words below the cut... )