THE HOBBIT, Or There and Back Again.

First printing of the third edition. Publisher's original green cloth with wraparound illustration and dark blue titles to the spine and upper board, in dustwrapper. Map endpapers, four colour plates and eight black and white illustrations after drawings by the author. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth bright and fresh. The contents, with the small bookplate of Berkeley poet, writer and printer John Ruyle to the upper left corner of the front pastedown (hidden by the dustwrapper flap), are otherwise clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed dustwrapper that has a single short closed tear to the top edge of the rear panel and some spotting to the flap edges and underside. Not price-clipped (20s net to the front flap). An excellent example, scarce thus.

The correct first printing of the last edition to carry significant revisions by the author. The printers publishing information on the copyright page to the first printing of this third edition is misleading due to an error in the publication chronology. What should have read as: 'Fifteenth Impression 1965' followed by 'Third Edition (Sixteenth Impression) 1966' was actually set down as: 'Third Edition (Fifteenth Impression) 1966' followed by 'Sixteenth Impression 1966'. The Third Edition (Fifteenth Impression) 1966 does not exist and the error was never corrected. Tolkien's revisions were made to align the narrative more closely to The Lord of the Rings and to cosmological developments from his still unpublished Quenta Silmarillion (as it stood at that time). This third edition also introduced a new version of the history of Erebor. In the original story, Erebor was founded by Thorin's grandfather Thror, and the Arkenstone discovered by his father Thrain. However, to correct a note on the map saying that Thrain had been King Under the Mountain, Tolkien introduced a distant ancestor Thrain I in this text, who both founded the kingdom and discovered the Arkenstone. (Hammond A3i).