TOLKIEN, J.R.R. 1892-1973.
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again. London: George Allen & Unwin Limited, 1937.
8vo. Frontispiece and 9 illustrations (all but one full-page), advertisement leaf, original map endpapers printed in red and ack. Publisher's green cloth, lettered and decorated in dark blue, original pictorial dust jacket. Custom blue cloth chemise and blue morocco gilt slipcase. Cloth darkened on spine and edges of upper and lower covers, spine ends bumped, jacket expertly restored, with some toning still visible.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION, in a restored first issue dust jacket after a design by Tolkien, with 'Dodgeson' on rear flap corrected in ink, unclipped, with price '7s. 6d.' This impression, printed in an edition of 1500 copies, lacked the the additional color plates added to the second impression.

'In the hole underground, there lived a hobbit....' The Hobbit, published September 21, 1937, recreated the genre of fantasy, paving the way for the literary explosion of the genre that continues to the present day, from Harry Potter to Game of Thrones. 'To define the world of 'The Hobbit' is, of course, impossible, because it is new. You cannot anticipate it before you go there, as you cannot forget it once you have gone' (C.S. Lewis, Times Literary Supplement, October 2, 1937, p 714). Hammond A3(a).
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