Tolkien, J.R.R.

8vo. 10 illustrations by the author, 2pp. of publisher's advertisements at end; very minor foxing to endleaves, owner's name in ink to front free endpaper. Original green pictorial cloth stamped in black, pictorial endpapers printed in red and black, original pictorial dust-jacket, all after author's design, with "Dodgeson" corrected in ink on lower inside flap of the jacket; some light staining primarily to margins of boards, minimal foxing to fore-edge, some neat repairs to folds and head and foot of spine panel of jacket with later hand-coloring to style.    

Hammond A3a

FIRST ENGLISH EDITION, FIRST ISSUE.  J.R.R. Tolkien began writing The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, as a Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford University. Tolkien’s creative perspective was born from a childhood spent briefly in South Africa and then rural England, a short but wretched tour during World War I, and an avid fascination with German philology. Although it was originally billed as a children’s book, The Hobbit attracted a varied audience and has been wildly popular since its initial publication. Tolkien built upon the tradition of fantasy literature developed by George MacDonald, Lewis Carroll, and the folk tales of Arabian Nights by inventing a new language—Elvish—and making it accessible for modern-day readers. Such creativity brought rave reviews for The Hobbit, which sold out of its original print run of 1,500 copies three months after publication.