The Hobbit or There and Back Again. Illustrated by the Author. TOLKIEN, J.R.R.

Second edition, sixth impression, eleventh impression overall; 8vo; colour frontispiece, illustrations, map endpapers, unmarked internally; publisher's green pictorial cloth, titles and designs to spine and covers in dark blue, some discolouration to cloth on spine and extremities, corners bumped, with the price-clipped pictorial dustjacket, spine panel tanned with some nicks to head and foot, slight rubbing to extremities; very good. The first of Tolkien's works of fiction to be published, The Hobbit began as an amusement for the Tolkien children, and reached print rather unexpectedly, a typescript of it having been shown to the publisher by a former pupil of Tolkien's. Once published, it was an equally unexpected success and Unwin pressed Tolkien for a sequel, which grew into the Lord of the Rings trilogy.