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I'm re-reading The Hobbit after years. Just started the chapter "Riddles in the Dark"... and I was struck by the use of first-person narrative in this chapter.

"I should not have liked to have been in Mr. Baggins' place, all the same."

"I do not know how long he kept on like this"

”I don't know where he came from"

I didn't notice the first person being used at any point earlier. Is there some special reason Tolkien uses the first person for this chapter?

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    I suspect that, like the Tom Bombadil sequence in LOTR, it was something that Tolkien wrote earlier and then dropped into the story with only minor edits to make it fit. The dissimilar tone, tense and formatting from the rest of the book stand out like a sore thumb on both occasions.
    – Valorum
    Commented Aug 23, 2020 at 8:59
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    I think The Hobbit was originally a story he told to his children, so the 'I' was him narrating it.
    – sueelleker
    Commented Aug 23, 2020 at 9:04
  • In-universe, Bilbo wrote The Hobbit, and can be treated as the narrator talking about his own adventure in the third-person.
    – David Roberts
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 10:36
  • @DavidRoberts The first quote does not make any sense under that interpretation...
    – Jasper
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 11:24
  • Don't forget, the current Chapter 5 was written much later than the rest of the book. The original Chapter 5 (if you can find it) was a much different story.
    – Jim Green
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 15:54

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There are plenty of examples in The Hobbit of the narrator referring to himself, as well as addressing the reader directly. For example, this from chapter 1:

Gandalf! If you had heard only a quarter of what I have heard about him, and I have only heard very little of all there is to hear, you would be prepared for any sort of remarkable tale.

I don't think there's anything particular that is implied by this: Tolkien was just following the convention of children's stories at the time. Although he later wrote that he regretted the childish tone of The Hobbit. See Letter 234:

Never mind about the young! I am not interested in 'the child' as such, modern or otherwise, and certainly have no intention of meeting him/her half way, or a quarter of the way. It is a mistaken thing to do anyway, either useless (when applied to the stupid) or pernicious (when inflicted on the gifted). I have only once made the mistake of trying to do it, to my lasting regret, and (I am glad to say) with the disapproval of intelligent children: in the earlier part of The Hobbit. But I had not then given any serious thought to the matter: I had not freed myself from the contemporary delusions about 'fairy-stories' and children.

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    Lewis did it, too. And I remember finding it really weird when Hawthorne did it in A Scarlet Letter, clearly not a children's story.
    – trlkly
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 0:20
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    Further to sueelleker's Comment and Daniel Roseman's Answer, several biographers and commentators cite other Tolkien correspondence to say The Hobbit was intended to be read aloud to a child but my library's stuck in the loft so I can't look them up.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Aug 24, 2020 at 12:12
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    @Robbie: I happen to be reading the Hobbit to my 9-year old this month and at one point he asked me who the "I" in the book was. I told him at first that the "I" was the author of the book. But then I reconsidered and said the "I" was myself, because it is the one who is reading the book to him.
    – slingeraap
    Commented Aug 25, 2020 at 7:02
  • @slingeraap Exactly. We're getting off topic and hey, I met a mother and her son in a book-shop and after sharing that I'd read The Hobbit to my little sisters and she to another son, we almost hugged and kissed, and though the younger son with her was prolly only eight years old, it was clear that having his mother read The Hobbit to him had just been promoted from something may-be interesting to a must-have experience for which he could hardly wait. Further, asking who the "I" was seems remarkably perspicacious for a nine-year-old!
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Aug 27, 2020 at 0:33

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