Before the 1966 edition of The Hobbit, it wasn't specified that Gollum was 'a small, slimy creature'. Here are some interpretations of him before that edition. : r/lotr

1977's The Hobbit Showed Us the Future of Pop Culture

Council of Elrond » LotR News & Information » The Small, Slimy Creature: A closer look at Gollum

Did J. R.R. Tolkien extensively plan his fictional world before writing Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit, or did he plan as he went along? - Quora

Tolkien did not originally describe Gollum's size, leading illustrators such as Tove Jansson to portray him as very large : r/lotr

Before the 1966 edition of The Hobbit, it wasn't specified that Gollum was 'a small, slimy creature'. Here are some interpretations of him before that edition. : r/lotr

What was Gollum supposed to be in the Hobbit? : r/tolkienfans

What aspects of the first edition of The Hobbit changed when Tolkien went on to write The Lord of the Rings? What was the One Ring originally and what exactly was the

Gollum, The One Wiki to Rule Them All

What is the time period in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, and how does it relate to his other novels? - Quora

Did J.R.R. Tolkien himself approve of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies? Did he ever get to see the movies themselves? - Quora