The Hobbit

The 1951 second edition, issued as the fifth impression, carries Tolkien’s substantial revision of Chapter V, “Riddles in the Dark,” rewritten to bring the ring and Gollum into line with the sequel then in progress. In the original text Gollum wagers the ring on the riddle-game and, having lost, apologises and offers to lead Bilbo out by way of compensation; the revision replaced a courteous loser with a creature possessed by what it has lost — the single alteration that turned a children’s book into the first volume of something much larger.

The present impression followed in 1954, a few months before The Fellowship of the Ring appeared in July of that year: the last printing of The Hobbit to reach readers who did not yet know what Bilbo had picked up, the revised text already in place and the sequel it was revised for still unpublished.

The Harcourt Bindery of Boston, founded in 1900 and named for its first premises in Harcourt Street, is the oldest hand bindery in the United States and has bound continuously for American dealers and collectors ever since. The green goatskin echoes the publisher’s cloth.