The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again Tapa blanda - 1991

The Hobbit tells the famous story of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit who is caught up in the affairs of wizards. His journey through Mirkwood and the climactic confrontation with the dragon Smaug served as the launching point for Tolkien's transformative trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Many of the essential elements of Tolkien's classic saga have their roots in this children's book.

The story remains popular, and stands as one of the most enduring (and endearing) stories of the last century. The Hobbit sparked a creative explosion in speculative fiction, a fire that burns brightly to this day. The revival in interest in recent years, in part due to the popularity of the film series inspired by Tolkien's books only shows the timelessness of his story, and the importance of his work.

The first impression of the first edition ran as a limited printing of 1500 copies, published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1937. Authentic copies with the dust jacket will include a well known hand correction, in black ink, of a misspelling of the last name of Reverend Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) on the back flap. A first edition, first printing of the original U.K. edition can run over $40,000. Signed copies of this edition have been appraised at over $100,000 U.S. Later printings of the first edition also retain much value for collectors. The first U.S. Edition, printed in 1938 by Houghton Mifflin Company, is prized and is commonly sold to collectors at prices well over $2,000. Chips to the cover, a missing dustcover, wear to the spine, and damage to the map in the endpaper, are some of the more common flaws for this book.