Beyond intriguing is that the rather rare fore-name 'Bilbo' crops up in Thomas Dekker's Jacobean play called
Match me in London.
Ms. Seth's latest article captures the possibilty of this drama being the true source of Tolkien's inspiration for
The Hobbit.
https://priyasethtolkienfan.wordpres...lbo-in-london/
The evidence provided is quite stunning. Apart from the character called 'Bilbo', the play's content references a 'fire-drake' and some words very alike to Gollum's 'Thief, Thief,Thief!'
Other befitting allusions are reasonably numerous. And so several other matters in the play tie-up with scenes/points in the book.
The overall conclusion on the author's part is that Tolkien could have started off
The Hobbit tale with parody in mind. This would then tie in with her previously voicing
The Root of The Boot and
The Hobbit Trolls were hidden parody too. This is now becoming a theme as the evidence piles up. Are we all missing a very humorous side to Tolkien's personality and writings?
There are an awful lot of tangencies in this particular piece of research – hard to dismiss as mere chance!
A very worthy article, in my opinion, to bring to the attention of the academic community.
'Well-done', I say!