TOLKIEN, J.R.R. (1892-1973). The Hobbit or There and Back Again. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938.
8vo. 13 illustrations by Tolkien, including 4 in color. Original tan cloth stamped in blue and red, map endpapers printed in red; ORIGINAL DUST JACKET (price-clipped, few spots of professional restoration at extreme edges including ends, few small spots of wear to folds); full morocco folding box with matching dust jacket art. Provenance: Gelber-Lilienthal, Inc. (booksellers’ ticket).
FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, FIRST STATE with the “bowing hobbit” on the title-page (replaced by a publisher’s device in the second state), the color frontispiece inserted on a stub, and the endpapers bound opposite to the order of the List of Illustrations.
In 1937, Allen & Unwin, publishers of the first British edition, had interested “one of the outstanding firms of American publishers” in The Hobbit and, unlike the British edition, would be issued “more or less explicitly as a juvenile”. The interested party was none other than the publishing titan Houghton Mifflin whose goal was to “bring modern books to the modern world” (Houghton Mifflin, Our Legacy). Paul Brooks of Houghton Mifflin, later to be named editor-in-chief, “fell for Mr. Bilbo Baggins and his crew” despite negative criticism by the editor in charge of children’s books at his firm and the children’s librarian at the Boston Public Library, whose professional opinion was consulted. Unlike Allen & Unwin who published The Hobbit without illustrations, Houghton Mifflin wanted to include color illustrations by American artists in addition to Tolkien’s line drawings, but Allen & Unwin advised Tolkien that “it would be better if all the illustrations were from your hand”.
Despite Tolkien’s hesitations of his illustrations looking “rather silly”, he finally agreed to let Houghton Mifflin “do what seems good to them- as long [as] it was possible (I should like to add) to veto anything from or influenced by the Disney studios (for all whose work I have a heartfelt loathing)”. Two of these color illustrations were reproduced on the dust jacket, which Houghton Mifflin preferred to Tolkien’s first design on the dust jacket, which they felt had a “British look”. This rare dust jacket is now considered more desirable than the first British edition jacket as fewer have survived and is almost never to be found on the market. The Hobbit was later adapted into three films directed by Peter Jackson from 2012-2014, becoming one of the highest-grossing film series of all time. Hammond A3b.