Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938. First American edition. A Near Fine copy of the First American printing of this iconic work of imaginative fiction. Spine a bit toned, slight soiling to the boards, but otherwise a clean copy internally. Bowing Hobbit on the title page and misprint at Chapter VII (as required for the first printing), complete with the four color plates and numerous black and white illustrations.

The Hobbit follows the exploits of Bilbo Baggins as he joins a company of Dwarves set on retaking their former kingdom from the dragon Smaug. A brilliant piece of writing, for any genre. The book has now been translated into fifty languages and sold a hundred million copies worldwide. "Though all is marvelous, nothing is arbitrary: all the inhabitants of Wilderland seem to have the same unquestionable right to their existence as those of our own world, though the fortunate child who meets them will have no notion—and his unlearned elders not much more—of the deep sources in our blood and tradition from which they spring." (C. S. Lewis for the Times Literary Supplement, Oct., 1937) Near Fine (Item #5589)