22 Northmoor Road
22 Northmoor Road is a house in North Oxford where the Tolkien family lived until early 1930. Christopher Tolkien’s foreword to this edition of The Hobbit names it as the house where his father first told his sons the story.
At a glance
| Source | Author | Role | In one line |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Hobbit (Middle-Earth Universe) | J. R. R. Tolkien | backdrop | North Oxford house where Tolkien first told his sons the tale of a small being with furry feet. |
The Hobbit (Middle-Earth Universe) — J. R. R. Tolkien (1937)
Source: The Hobbit · Original · Readwise highlight
My brother Michael recorded long after his recollection of the evenings when my father would stand with his back to the fire in his small study of the house in North Oxford (22 Northmoor Road) and tell stories to my brothers and me;
- Role: backdrop
- In the book: In the foreword, Christopher Tolkien recalls his brother Michael’s memory of evenings in their father’s small study here, where Tolkien stood with his back to the fire and announced a long story about a small being with furry feet, to be called a hobbit. Michael dated the start to no later than 1929, since the family left the house at the beginning of 1930; young Christopher once interrupted to complain that Bilbo’s door had changed colour.
- Why it matters: Not a setting of the story but the book’s birthplace as a told tale, which fixes when The Hobbit began.
- Real vs. fictional: Real house; the scene comes from the editorial foreword, not from the story.