TOLKIEN, J. R. R.

£25,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

The Hobbit First colour-illustrated edition, preceded only by the first printing. Only 2,300 copies were printed of this edition, of which 423 copies in sheets were destroyed in the bombing of London in 1940.The coloured versions of the illustrations "had been commissioned for their first American edition, and were in the American publisher's hands when Allen & Unwin decided to include them in the second impression. The original art was called back for reproduction in Britain, then returned across the Atlantic" (Hammond & Anderson p. 15). The first edition was published on 21 September 1937 and the first impression of 1,500 copies sold out by December.

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