The first impression of the first UK edition, limited to only 1500 copies. The very first printing had no colour illustrations within the book itself, but included ten black and white illustrations along with the two maps, which Tolkien had originally intended to have been five. Published on September 21, 1937, by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, ‘The Hobbit’ had completely sold out by December 15, and has now gone on to sell over 100 million copies.

The Book
“Among the very highest achievements of children’s authors during the twentieth century” (Carpenter & Pritchard).

“In enchanted Middle-earth, a small, comfort-loving Hobbit is awakened from his slumbers by a visitor who tells of lost treasure. Before Bilbo Baggins returns home again, he journeys past wizards and elves, talkative trees and treasure-guarding dragons, all swirling in cosmic battle between good and evil. J.R.R. Tolkien’s fully realized fantasy world won over generations of children, and dazzled adults with its deft interweaving of medieval legend and made-up languages, maps, and creatures. Tolkien legitimized the modern fantasy genre, and provided the 1960’s counterculture with antiwar, back-to-Eden icons” (NYPL).

“In a 1955 letter to W. H. Auden… Tolkien recollects in the late 1920s, when he was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, he began The Hobbit when he was marking School Certificate papers. On the back of one of the papers, he wrote the words “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit”. He did not go any further than that at the time, although in the following years he drew up Thror’s map, outlining the geography of the tale” (Tolkien Library).

The Maps
‘The Hobbit’ contains two maps at the endpapers of the book: ‘Thror’s Map’ at the front, and ‘Wilderland’ at the back.

Thror’s map, which the book tells us was handed down to Thorin, is orientated with East at the top, and depicts the Lonely Mountain of Erebor, the Running River that flowed from it, and the secret entrance to it, with runic instructions in secret moon letters as to how it might be opened. The runes are written in Anglo-Saxon Futhark.

The second map depicts ‘Wilderland’, from Rivendell in the west to the Lonely Mountain and Smaug the dragon in the east. The Misty Mountains are populated woodmen and their huts, as well as large spiders and their webs. The map is overprinted with placenames in red. “[T]he names and the maps give Middle-earth that air of solidity and extent both in space and time which its successors so conspicuously lack” (Shippey).

Tolkien’s maps were drawn and lettered in manuscript by Tolkien in blue and black ink. The publishers asked for them to be redrawn with sharper lettering, and opted for the more dramatic colour scheme of red and black.