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Originally Posted by Mumak o' Harad
I think that The Lord of the Rings was written under the Hobbits' perspective, and maybe it is, in fact, narrated by the Hobbits; therefore, I think that the books "grow up" with the Hobbits over the course of the story, i.e. from the innocence of the Shire (childish) to the dreads of The War of the Rings/Mount Doom (adult), and the literary style accompanies the Hobbits' development throughout the story.
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And, in conjunction with this comment from before, if you think about even the goals of the two "quests",
The Lord of the Rings has a more ominous theme in general. There was a lot less at stake for Middle Earth as a whole in
The Hobbit - it was a much more personal mission the Dwarves and Bilbo were on. Yes, Smaug also caused devastation to the surrounding people, but there were not entire races of beings at stake. The Dwarves were not going on a journey to save all of their people, but it was more about treasure. Though Dwarves valued their treasure as much as their solitude, they were seeking a tangible luxury, granted one that was rightfully theirs.
Meanwhile, in
The Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship has the fate of all of Middle Earth resting in their hands. They were trying to protect a far more precious thing: freedom. The tale as a whole encompassed far more land, time, races, and points of view than
The Hobbit. In
The Hobbit, we're only given the views of Bilbo and the Dwarves, while we achieve at least a general understanding of the motives behind basically every race in
The Lord of the Rings. The slightly more simple view in
The Hobbit was, as we said, obviously intentional, as it was intended to be more suitable for a younger crowd than
The Lord of the Rings. This is not to say that adults cannot enjoy
The Hobbit and younger children
The Lord of the Rings, but, to reiterate, the main crowd was different. I think that - having read
The Lord of the Rings first when I was eight and nine, then having reread it a few times subsequently, there are certainly dark themes that I - and many I know who read them at about the same age - did not quite pick up on until we were older. Meanwhile, as a seventeen-year old, I am by no means "an adult", but I still enjoy
The Hobbit as much as I did when I was young.