An exceptional copy
50 TOLKIEN, J. R. R. The Hobbit or There and Back Again. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1937 £150,000 [ 158582 ] Octavo. Original green cloth, spine and front cover lettered in dark blue, binding blocked with design in dark blue, map endpapers printed in black and red, top edge green. With dust jacket. Housed in a custom green morocco-backed folding box. Map endpapers printed in red and black, frontispiece, and 9 illustrations by the author. Minor leaning to spine, head of spine very slightly bumped, light foxing to cloth, foxing and minor marks to edges, occasional internal foxing; a near-fine and sharp copy. Slightly toned dust jacket with head and foot of spine worn with tears and minor loss, other short closed tears; a near-fine and unclipped jacket, now seldom encountered in such a bright and unrestored condition. ¶ Hammond & Anderson A3a. Carpenter & Prichard, The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature , 1984, p. 254; Grolier Club, One Hundred Books Famous in Children’s Literature , 2014, 81; [Lewis], “A World for Children”, The Times Literary Supplement , 2 October 1937, p. 714; Powers, Front Cover , 2001, p. 24.
First edition, first impression, in the first issue jacket, of “the outstanding British work of fantasy for children to appear between the two World Wars, and the first of a series of books which eventually brought Tolkien world-wide fame and created a cult following” (Carpenter & Prichard). It is rare to find an unrestored jacket in such vibrant condition. Keen to draw similarities with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , the publishers drew parallels between Lewis Carroll and J. R. R. Tolkien. Unfortunately the blurb on the rear inside flap of the first issue of the dust jacket incorrectly cites the author of Alice as “Dodgeson”. This required a correction in ink by hand, as in this copy. Production of the book took several months with significant time devoted to the illustrations. Tolkien prepared more than 100 of his own illustrations for the book, although he realised that this number would have to be greatly reduced for publication. Tolkien was also responsible for the dust jacket design, depicting the mountains of Bilbo Baggins’s journey in a remarkable night and day combination. It is described by Alan Powers as “stylized art nouveau”. The first edition was published on 21 September 1937 and the first impression of 1,500 copies was sold out by December.
SIXTY FINE ITEMS
All items are fully described and photographed at peterharrington.co.uk
98
99
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator