The Hobbit. This item is unavailable.The Hobbit

A Near Fine copy, in like dust jacket, of the first American printing of this iconic work of imaginative fiction. Bowing Hobbit on the title page and misprint at Chapter VII (as required for the first printing), complete with the four color plates and numerous black and white illustrations. Book with lower corner of the front end paper clipped and a previous owner's gift inscription on the first blank. In a lovely example of the scarce first American dust jacket. Jacket with two short tears closed on the verso with tape, otherwise in exceptional condition. A very appealing example. The Hobbit follows the exploits of Bilbo Baggins as he joins a company of Dwarves set on retaking their former kingdom from the dragon Smaug. A brilliant piece of writing that transcends its status as a fantasy classic, the book has now been translated into fifty languages and sold a hundred million copies worldwide. As Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis wrote in a contemporary review, ?Though all is marvelous, nothing is arbitrary: all the inhabitants of Wilderland seem to have the same unquestionable right to their existence as those of our own world, though the fortunate child who meets them will have no notion ? and his unlearned elders not much more?of the deep sources in our blood and tradition from which they spring? (Times Literary Supplement, October 1937). Near Fine in Near Fine dust jacket. …