based on the first, introduced much new material – most notably the arrival of Gandalf, and the fireworks. This version breaks off at the words ‘Morning went on’ (FR p. 45).
The manuscript was much emended, and it is very difficult to distinguish those changes made at the time of composition from those made subsequently: in any case the third version no doubt followed hard upon the second, superseding it before it was completed. I give this second text also in full, so far as it goes, but in this case I include virtually all the emendations made to it (in some cases the original reading is given in the notes which follow the text on p. 25).
Chapter 1
A long-expected party
When Bilbo, son of Bungo, of the respectable family of Baggins prepared to celebrate his seventy-first1 birthday there was some little talk in the neighbourhood, and people polished up their memories.2 Bilbo had once had some brief notoriety among the hobbits of Hobbiton and Bywater – he had disappeared after breakfast one April 30th and had not reappeared until lunch-time on June 22nd in the following year. A very odd proceeding, and one for which he had never accounted satisfactorily. He wrote a book about it, of course: but even those who had read it never took that seriously. It is no good talking to hobbits about dragons: they either disbelieve you, or feel uncomfortable; and in either case tend to avoid you afterwards. Mr Baggins, however, had soon returned to more or less normal ways; and though the shaken confidence of the countryside was never quite restored, in time the hobbits agreed to pardon the past, and Bilbo was on calling-terms again with all his relatives and neighbours, except of course the Sackville-Bagginses. For one thing Bilbo seemed by some unexplained method to have become more than comfortably off, in fact positively wealthy. Indeed it was the magnificence of the preparations for his birthday-party far more than his brief and distant fame that caused the talk. After all that other odd business had happened some twenty years ago and was all but forgotten; the party was going to happen that very month of September. The weather was fine, and there was talk of a display of fireworks such as had not been seen since the days of Old Took.
Time drew nearer. Odd-looking carts with odd-looking packages began to toil up the Hill to Bag-end (the residence of Mr Bilbo Baggins). They arrived by night, and startled folk peered out of their doors to gape at them. Some were driven by outlandish folk singing strange songs, elves, or heavily hooded dwarves. There was one huge creaking wain with great lumbering tow-haired Men on it that caused quite a commotion. It bore a large B under a crown.3 It could not get across the bridge by the mill, and the Men carried the goods on their backs up the hill – stumping on the hobbit road like elephants. All the beer at the inn vanished as if down a drain when they came downhill again. Later in the week a cart came trotting in in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all alone. He wore a tall pointed blue hat and a long grey cloak. Hobbit boys and girls ran after the cart all the way up the hill. It had a cargo of fireworks, that they could see when it began to unload: great bundles of them, labelled with a red G.
‘G for grand,’ they shouted; and that was as good a guess as they could make at its meaning. Not many of their elders guessed better: hobbits have rather short memories as a rule. As for the little old man,4 he vanished inside Bilbo’s front door and never reappeared.
There might have been some grumbling about ‘dealing locally’; but suddenly orders began to pour out from Bag-end, and into every shop in the neighbourhood (even widely measured). Then people stopped being merely curious, and became enthusiastic. They began to tick off the days on the calendar till Bilbo’s birthday, and they began to watch for the postman, hoping for invitations.
Then the invitations began pouring out, and the post-office of Hobbiton was blocked, and Bywater post-office was snowed under, and voluntary postmen were called for. There was a constant stream of them going up The Hill to Bag-end carrying letters containing hundreds of polite variations on ‘thank-you, I shall certainly come.’ During all this time, for days and days, indeed since September [10th >] 8th, Bilbo had not been seen out or about by anyone. He either did not answer the bell, or came to the door and cried ‘Sorry – Busy!’ round the edge of it. They thought he was only writing invitation cards, but they were not quite right.
Finally the field to the south of his front door – it was bordered by his kitchen garden on one side and the Hill road on the other – began to be covered with tents and pavilions. The three hobbit-families of Bagshot Row just below it were immensely excited. There was one specially large pavilion, so large that the tree that stood in the field was inside it, standing growing in the middle.5 It was hung all over with lanterns. Even more promising was the erection of a huge kitchen in a corner of the field. A draught of cooks arrived. Excitement rose to its height. Then the weather clouded over. That was on Friday, the eve of the party. Anxiety grew intense. Then Saturday September [20th >] 22nd6 actually dawned. The sun got up, the clouds vanished, flags were unfurled, and the fun began.
Mr Baggins called it a party – but it was several rolled into one and mixed up. Practically everybody near at hand was invited to something or other – very few were forgotten (by accident), and as they turned up anyhow it did not matter. Bilbo met the guests (and additions) at the gate in person. He gave away presents to all and sundry – the latter were those that went out again by the back way and came in again by the front for a second helping. He began with the youngest and smallest, and came back again quickly to the smallest and youngest. Hobbits give presents to other people on their birthdays: not very expensive ones, of course. But it was not a bad system. Actually in Hobbiton and Bywater, since every day in the year was somebody’s birthday, it meant that every hobbit got a present (and sometimes more) almost every day of his life. But they did not get tired of them. On this occasion the hobbit-fry were wildly excited – there were toys the like of which they had never seen before. As you have guessed, they came from Dale.
When they got inside the grounds the guests had songs, dances, games – and of course food and drink. There were three official meals: lunch, tea, and dinner (or supper); but lunch and tea were marked chiefly by the fact that at those times everybody was sitting down and eating at the same time. Drinking never stopped. Eating went on pretty continuously from elevenses to six o’clock, when the fireworks started.
The fireworks of course (as you at any rate have guessed) were by Gandalf, and brought by him in person, and let off by him – the main ones: there was generous distribution of squibs, crackers, sparklers, torches, dwarf-candles, elf-fountains, goblin-barkers and thunderclaps. They were of course superb. The art of Gandalf naturally got the older the better. There were rockets like a flight of scintillating birds singing with sweet voices; there were green trees with trunks of twisted smoke: their leaves opened like a whole spring unfolding in a few minutes, and their shining branches dropped glowing flowers down upon the astonished hobbits – only to disappear in a sweet scent before they touched head hat or bonnet. There were fountains of butterflies that flew into the trees; there were pillars of coloured fires that turned into hovering eagles, or sailing ships, or a flight of swans; there were red thunderstorms and showers of yellow rain; there was a forest of silver spears that went suddenly up into the air with a yell like a charging army and came down into The Water with a hiss like a hundred hot snakes. And there was also one last thing in which Gandalf rather overdid it – after all, he knew a great deal about hobbits and their beliefs. The lights went out, a great smoke went up, it shaped itself like a mountain, it began to glow at the top, it burst into flames of scarlet and green, out flew a red-golden dragon (not life-size, of course, but terribly life-like): fire came out of its mouth, its eyes glared down, there was a roar and it whizzed three times round the crowd. Everyone ducked and some fell flat. The dragon passed like an express train and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion.
‘That
