Hobbits first appeared in the 1937 children's novel "The Hobbit", whose titular hobbit is the protagonist Bilbo Baggins, who is thrown into an unexpected adventure involving a dragon. In its sequel, "The Lord of the Rings", the hobbits Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Pippin Took, and Merry Brandybuck are primary characters who all play key roles in fighting to save their world ("Middle-earth") from evil. In "The Hobbit", hobbits live together in a small town called Hobbiton, which in "The Lord of the Rings" is identified as being part of a larger rural region called the Shire, the homeland of the hobbits in the northwest of Middle-earth. They also live in a village east of the Shire, called Bree, where they co-exist with humans.