The Hobbit, First Four First Editions, 1937, 1937, 1942, 1944

We are thrilled to offer the most unique set of books in our 25 years as a specialist Tolkien dealer, the first four editions of the Hobbit in the original very good to near fine condition, unrestored dust jackets. It is the minor wear and tear that provides the authenticity of unrestored. Too good to be true, is too good to be true! Only once before have all four been available, (by us as well, see our TV appearances). Please ask for more photos. Allen & Unwin 1st/1st 1937, 1st/2nd 1937, 1st/3rd 1942 and 1st/4th 1946 printings. Fine 1st/1st Hobbits, if they appear on the market, now exceed £400,000, but nearly all have some repair or have some restoration which seriously reduced their future value. There may come a day when restored is worth the same as unrestored is now, but that day has not come yet. You can still find them, but only every few years. The 2nd,3rd and 4th with unrestored, unrepaired dust jackets once appeared fairly regularly, but we have not seen them for many years, except with repaired or restored jackets. These go into collections, including legacy libraries and frankly, never come out! Do not expect a flood of Hobbits! One of the significant features of the first ten or so printed Hobbits was the text was changed to align it as the prequel to The Lord of the Rings. The first four Hobbits were the original text with gradual modifications until the first printing 1951 2nd edition Hobbit with major changes to chapter five among others. Goblins became Orcs for example. So few of the 1942 dust jackets exist, it was thought for a time they were produced without them due to paper shortages during the war. 400 were lost in a fire during the blitz of London and half the sheets/pages were used to produced the Children's book club edition of the same year. The 1st/1st Hobbit used no colour illustrations, the 1st/2nd and later used colour. The 3rd and 4th were printed on war-time paper making the books half the thickness, with full sized dustjackets, but the cheap paper made the jackets subject rapid wear and damage especially the 3rd printing. These are just some of the features of the first four. The Hobbit First edition: Possibly uniquely in children's publishing, when The Hobbit came out in 1937, it contained quite a few things in that first edition that are much different to the book as we know it now in the second and later editions. Some of the changes were made because The Hobbit was being drawn into the larger stories in Middle earth and was becoming far more serious and darker. Firstly, in that first edition Bilbo at the Unexpected Party had sandwiches with tomatoes in them - tomatoes are of course from the New World, so Tolkien changed that in the second edition to pickles. Indeed, Tolkien spends quite some time in Letters explaining how potatoes might have existed, as well as tobacco - both New World varieties. In this case, Tolkien cleverly used 'taters' and 'pipeweed', thus obscuring the origin of the plants in question. The second and largest and most significant change was to the chapter 'Riddles in the Dark', where the last section of the chapter is completely different. Gollum, having lost the riddle game to the Hobbit, apologises profusely and offers to lead Bilbo out as compensation for the gift he would have given him (presumably the magic ring). He takes him so far along the tunnels, and then gets suspicious, and Bilbo then has to get past him - overhearing Gollum's talk to himself that reveals that the ring is capable of making him invisible. The Hobbit originally in 1937 had no link to Middle earth and the magic ring was just an equaliser device to give Bilbo some edge and extra powers to become 'heroic' when he was not brave or very resourceful. Note, we will hand deliver these books, at cost, anywhere in the world. They are too valuable to ship. …