B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S G E N R E F I C T I O N * 2 0 2 3 31. TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938. Octavo, original beige cloth, cartographic endpapers, original dust jacket. $35,000 "IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND THERE LIVED A HOBBIT": FIRST AMERICAN EDITION OF TOLKIEN'S CLASSIC FANTASY, WITH FOUR OF TOLKIEN'S ICONIC ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR, IN SCARCE ORIGINAL DUST JACKET First American edition, in scarce original dust jacket, of the fantasy classic—”among the very highest achievements of children’s authors during the 20th century” (Carpenter & Pritchard, 530)—with four of Tolkien’s iconic illustrations printed in color. Not unlike its titular protagonist—the “little fellow” Bilbo Baggins, quiet and unremarkable, who nonetheless becomes the hero of an epic adventure—The Hobbit, now widely hailed as a landmark work not only of children’s literature but also of world fantasy, had a humble origin. “All I can remember about the start of The Hobbit,” Tolkien would later recall in a letter to his friend W.H. Auden, “is sitting correcting School Certificate papers in the everlasting weariness of that annual task forced on impecunious academics 31
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