"IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND THERE LIVED A HOBBIT"

TOLKIEN, J.R.R. The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. London: George Allen & Unwin, (1942). Octavo, original light green cloth with dark blue decorations, cartographic endpapers, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom half leather clamshell box. $18,500.

First edition, third printing of the fantasy classic—"among the very highest achievements of children's authors during the 20th century" (Carpenter & Pritchard, 530), with the color frontispiece not included in the first printing.

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 with children. On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' I did not and do not know why. I did nothing about it, for a long time… but it became The Hobbit in the early 1930s." Much more than a "fine, robustly plotted adventure story" (Fantasy and Horror 5-288), The Hobbit endures as "the outstanding British work of fantasy for children to appear between the two World Wars… All historians of children's literature… agree in placing [The Hobbit] among the very highest achievements of children's authors during the 20th century" (Carpenter & Prichard, 254, 530). It served as readers' introduction to Middle-Earth, the elaborately textured and completely convincing imaginary world that Tolkien had been creating as a private exercise since as early as 1918. "Professor Tolkien's epic of Middle Earth… [is considered] one of [the 20th] century's lasting contributions to that borderland of literature between youth and age. There are few such books—Gulliver's Travels, The Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote, Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows—what else?… [Tolkien's tales of Middle-Earth are] destined to become this century's contribution to that select list of books which continue through the ages to be read by children and adults with almost equal pleasure" (Eyre, 67, 134-5). Published on September 21, 1937 in a first printing of only 1500 copies, The Hobbit had completely sold out by December 15. "It may have been a surprise to its publishers that a work as sui generis as The Hobbit should have been a popular success, but once it was a success there can have been no surprise in the clamor for a sequel. Tolkien had opened up a new imaginative continent, and the cry now was to see more of it" (Shippey, 49). Tolkien would, of course, go on to reveal much more in his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings (1954-55).

All of the book's illustrations and decorations are by Tolkien: eight black-and-white pen drawings; the color frontispiece(which did not appear in color until the second printing); and two maps printed in red and black (appearing as the front and rear endpapers). The first printing was issued September 21, 1937, in a print run of only 1500 copies, which sold out within months, followed by a second printing in December of that same year in a print run of only 2300 copies, 423 of which were destroyed at the warehouse of the binder Key and Whiting in the bombing of London on November 7, 1940. This third printing of 1500 copies is dated 1942, "but slow binding delayed publication by Allen & Unwin until 1943" (Hammond & Anderson, 16); as noted on the copyright page, it was produced "in complete conformity with the authorized economy standards" instituted during World War II. Dust jacket with "third impression" on front flap. Hammond & Anderson A3a. Currey 385. Owner signature on front free endpaper.

Book with occasional faint soiling, paper flaw affecting text but not readability at pages 99-100. Unrestored dust jacket with chipping to spine head, mild toning to spine. An exceptional copy.