Rare Hobbit First Edition Auctioned for £43,000

A rare first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit has sold for £43,000 (approximately $57,000) at auction, following its unexpected discovery during a routine house clearance in south-west England.

The volume was purchased by a private collector in the United Kingdom. It is one of just 1,500 original copies of Tolkien’s seminal fantasy novel published in 1937.

According to the auction house Auctioneum, which uncovered the book on a nondescript bookshelf in a home in Bristol, only a few hundred copies are believed to still exist from the original print run.

“It’s a wonderful result, for a very special book,” said Caitlin Riley, rare books specialist at Auctioneum.

Auction Highlights

Discovery and Condition

The book was discovered by Auctioneum staff following the death of the property’s owner. The rare edition had been quietly sitting, unnoticed, on a typical household bookcase.

“Nobody knew it was there. It was just a run-of-the-mill bookcase,” said Riley.
“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition. I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she added, describing the find as an “unimaginably rare” discovery.

The copy is bound in light green cloth and contains black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien himself, created during his time as a professor at the University of Oxford.

Literary and Historical Significance

The copy once belonged to the family library of botanist Hubert Priestley, who had ties to Oxford. Auctioneum believes that Priestley may have personally known Tolkien and shared correspondence with C.S. Lewis, another Oxford academic and author of The Chronicles of Narnia.

“It is likely that both men knew each other,” the auction house noted, citing their mutual connection to Lewis.

Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which introduced readers to the fictional world of Middle Earth, laid the groundwork for his later masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit alone has sold over 100 million copies worldwide.

Previous Record Sales

This sale is among the most notable in recent years, though not the most expensive. A first edition of The Hobbit containing a handwritten note in Elvish by Tolkien sold for £137,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2015.

The enduring popularity of Tolkien’s works, bolstered by critically acclaimed film adaptations in the 2000s, continues to drive demand for original editions among collectors worldwide.