If the Hobbit had evolved without LOTR

[Fëanor]

Good point there!

What I tried to say was Tolkien didn´t build the legendarium in one night, so I believe that the original Hobbit wasn´t so related with the seed of the Legendarium as we would like. Of course there were ideas in common, but he didn´t build the world in a premeditated way. At least in the Hobbit. But is just my opinion.

[DavetheLost]

"This take grew in the telling..." With these words Tolkien opens his prefacatory remarks to LotR. He mentions bits of the older matters peeping through in the Hobbit, Gondolin, Elrond, etc.

The early manuscripts for what became Lord of the Rings are certainly more Hobbitish in character. The first book and much of the second of the later novel feel much more like the Hobbit in tone than do the fifth and sixth books. Compare "A Long Expected Party" or "A Shortcut to Mushrooms" with "The Pyre of Denethor" or "The Black Gate Opens". They seem almost to be from different novels.

I think ultimately a sequel to the Hobbit that did not grow into The Lord of the Rings would have required an author with different aims in mind. Tolkien set out to write a thoroughly English mythology. To match those of the Norse, Greeks and Germans. The Nordic and Germanic influences are very strong and clear. The Hobbit was very much a departure from the Legendarium, and it took quite a bit to get it to fit.