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 with tiny bumps to the extremities, the cloth with some ghosting to the spine is otherwise bright and fresh. The contents, with a small previous owner's ink inscription (Pembroke College, Oxford) to the half title are otherwise clean throughout. Complete with the lightly rubbed and nicked dustwrapper that has thin strips of toning to the top edge of the flaps. Not price-clipped (20s net to the front flap). An excellent example, scarce thus.

The true first printing of the last edition to carry significant revisions by the author. The 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were made to align the narrative more closely to The Lord of the Rings and to cosmological developments from his still unpublished Quenta Silmarillion (as it stood at that time). The 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. 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. [Hammond A3i].