The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
London, George Allen & Unwin, 1958 (second edition, tenth impression overall)/ September 1937.
Octavo, [vi] (preliminaries), [11]-315, [1] (colophon) pages with 8 illustrations (7 full-page) plus a colour frontispiece and a different two-colour map across each endpaper.
Light green papered boards lettered and decorated in black; spine lightly sunned in parts (being the few light areas on the spine of the dustwrapper); very light tidemark on the top edge; minimal offsetting to the first and last pages; minor creasing and a tiny sealed tear to the leading edge of two consecutive leaves; an excellent copy with the excellent price-clipped dustwrapper a little sunned and tidemarked on the spine (the latter almost invisible in the dark colours), and lightly rubbed with a couple of short edge tears.
All illustrations, including the dustwrapper artwork, are by the author. A later (sixth) printing of Hammond and Anderson A3c (1951, second edition, fifth impression overall); later printings in this edition correct several errors and include a short note at the end of the book 'If you are interested in Hobbits you will learn a lot more about them in "The Lord of the Rings"...' Offered with a copy of the 50th Anniversary edition of 1987 (Hammond and Anderson A3y), an as-new hardback with the dustwrapper. Although it lacks two of the five colour colour plates, it has 'a special introduction [16 pages with illustrations] by Christopher Tolkien which includes unpublished illustrations by the author and the sole surviving page of the original draft of the first chapter' (dustwrapper blurb). [2 items].
Item #125238
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