The Hobbit or There and Back Again

The Hobbit or There and Back Again, by J. R. R. Tolkien. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, [1937]. Second edition, twelfth impression, 1961. Publisher's original green cloth binding, with black lettering and illustrations to boards and spine, and map endpapers. In original, unclipped dust wrapper priced 12s. 6d. to front flap. Illustrated by the author.

The book has a little light bumping to its front corners, very mild crushing to spine tips, small faded tape marks (between 1 and 2 cm) to front and rear cover, and edges slightly tanned with a 3.5cm mark to top edge which seeped slightly (and rather faded) to the upper extremities of the pages by about half a centimetre (see third from last photograph). The binding is nice and square with pages well bound and no spine breaks throughout. Both paste-downs and FFEPs show two long strips of glue residue (from having the jacket affixed in the past) which does not affect legibility of the map at all, with some offsetting to the subsequent blank pages. The frontispiece has a slight crease to one corner (see second to last photograph). There is a small ex-library book stamp to one of the last blank pages. Throughout, the text is clean, uninscribed and one will only find the odd crease to corners and the odd foxing spot or grubby thumb mark.

In a rather good dust wrapper which, with the exception of two long strips of glue residue to each flap and a little innocuous chipping to extremities (with minimal loss), is really bright and lovely.

An ex-library example and early printing of this beloved story of a humble hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who is unexpectedly swept into an epic adventure (despite adventures being "nasty disturbing uncomfortable things [... that] make you late for dinner!”), joining a group of dwarves on a perilous journey to reclaim their lost kingdom from the fearsome dragon Smaug.