"Curse it! curse it! curse it!" hissed Gollum. "Curse the Baggins! It's gone! What has it got in its pocketses? Oh we guess, we guess, my precious. He's found it, yes he must have. My birthday-present." Here we offer the second US edition, ninth printing, of the classic fantasy novel "for all ages," J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, published by Houghton Mifflin, Boston, in 1957. The book, one of just 1,000 in this run, assembled from original UK sheets, is undated, but is identified by the following points:Smaller size, 7.5"x5.25" and 315 pages Color maps on inside cover of both front and back boards (black and red)Color frontispiece included of art by Tolkien entitled "The Hill: Hobbiton-across-the Water"Copyright page bears only the location: "Printed in Great Britain"Teal cloth book boardsPage 20, line 6: e in "the" is clippedPage 223, line 26: p in "peep is clippedThough this book was originally wrapped in a second-form dust jacket modeled on the UK jacket, this book comes wrapped in a very high quality facsimile of the first US edition dust jacket you can only get here, remastered, resized, and printed on coated heavyweight bond. The polymer coating on the paper ensures the brightest colors and sharpest prints, as the ink sits atop the paper rather than being absorbed into the fibers. Boards are lightly stained and edgeworn (please see pics.) Intact endpages are uninscribed with light foxing. Some light foxing within. The binding is very tight and square; the text and illustrations are very clean, bright, and crisp. The dust jacket comes wrapped in a ph-neutral mylar sleeve and ready to slip into your collection. This very early Hobbit will make a wonderful addition to your collection or a very special and thoughtful gift. This book was burned in Alamagordo, NM (2001) outside Christ Community Church as satanic.To see our entire shelf of banned books, please click HERE.Check out our shelf of other iconic fantasy and sci-fi firsts by clicking HERE!** Have you seen all the amazing first and rare editions of iconic books we offer? We gladly combine shipping and refund the shipping overpayment, so please check out our other items! -- other auctions of classic antiquarian literature and special gifts!** Thank you for your interest! ***Priority shipping options are available at checkout!***