Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938. First American edition. Bowing Hobbit on the title-page and misprint at Chapter VII (as required for the first printing). A Fine copy of this iconic work of imaginative fiction. Complete with the four color plates and numerous black and white illustrations. A couple minor smudges to cloth and the edges of closed text block, otherwise an exceptionally bright and attractive example.

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 that transcends its status as a fantasy classic, the book has now been translated into fifty languages and sold a hundred million copies worldwide. As Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis wrote in a contemporary review, “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” (Times Literary Supplement, October 1937). Fine (Item #8118)