The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

Publisher and Year : London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1937 Edition : First edition, second impression. Printed in December 1937, just two months after the first impression. In the second impression, the frontispiece was changed from black-and-white to full color, and three new color plates were added. Of the 2,300 copies that were printed, 423 were destroyed when the warehouse was bombed during the Blitz in November 1940. Lacking the scarce dust jacket. (Hammond & Anderson A3) Condition and Description : Octavo, publisher's teal cloth stamped in dark blue, green top stain, 310 pp (+2 pp ads). Illustrated by Tolkien with maps on the endpapers, a color frontispiece, three additional color plates, and eight black-and-white drawings. Cloth faded and stained. Green top stain faded. Staining to the edges of the text block. Hinges firm. Rear endpaper splitting along the gutter, though the underlying hinge remains intact. Binding secure, though a few gutters are lightly exposed. All pages firmly attached. Bookseller ticket to the front pastedown. Contemporary owner's name in pencil to the front blank leaf, dated 1939. Otherwise, it is free of prior owner's markings. Light-to-mild foxing to the preliminary leaves. Small tear to the lower margin of the frontispiece, not affecting the printed image. Occasional thumb soiling, staining, and handling wear to the pages, mostly up to p. 40 and much less thereafter. Stain to the verso of the Mirkwood illustration and the following page (p. 147). Housed in a modern clamshell case stamped in gilt and a facsimile dust jacket preserved in archival mylar. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." The Hobbit established the blueprint for modern high fantasy. Upon publication, few would have suspected that the novel would leave such a profound impact on literature. Seventeen years later, Tolkien published the first novel in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, another watershed moment in the genre. Inventory ID: 008 - 892 - 303.…