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My US 1938 First Edition Hobbit Collection

22 May, 2021 (edited)
2021-5-22 2:06:12 PM UTC

I thought I would finally post a couple pictures, just for you all, of my collection of US 1938 First Edition Hobbits.

I bought my first copy in May of 1978 for $80...which was a lot of money for a kid just starting college. 43 years and 43 purchases later, I now have 44 US 1938 Firsts...including a number of library copies, rebinds, and four with original dust jackets.

Most of my books I covered with facsimile jackets (except of course those with original jackets or unique rebinds) and all I had slipcases or clamshells made for storage.

I used the US Hobbit Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English- ... #First_edition_identifier) as opposed to Wayne Hammond’s 1993 Tolkien Bibliography as a guide to help determine which of the states (variants/printings) was each copy (I very briefly discussed with Wayne Hammond, at the Morgan Library in 2019, the six proposed states in the article...he did suggest that there could indeed be more states than the two that were described in his 1993 Bibliography).

[A note, I am not sure I have a good representative subset of books to make any factual observations on these states other than perhaps state 2 seems to be one of hardest to find. But I would like to one day use my collection to update the wiki article if needed.]

Anyway, here is some data on my collection:

State -Count

1 -13
(1 library binding)
(2 ex library marked)
(2 with jackets)
(1 5 loose pages)
(1 loose Eagle page)

2 -1

3 -19
(2 with jackets)
(2 library bindings)
(1 rebinding)
(1 loose page)
(1 loose boards/Eagle page)
(1 rebinding/Hobbiton missing)

4a -1
(1 library binding)

4b -7
(1 library binding)

4c -3

Total: 44

Anyway, I thought I would share...

Lance

5090_60a908ab221ad.jpeg 3919X2273 px

5090_60a908ab2325d.jpeg 3840X2921 px
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 2:19:49 PM UTC
43 years...44 1sts! Well done LanceFormation, you are the HMCO 1st Hobbit master!

It's really cool to see them all together like that, and those rebinds have always interested me.

Lance knows more about these particular editions than anyone that I know of and now y'all can see why

Maybe he'll also treat us to his enormous ACE PB collection one day as well
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 2:32:59 PM UTC
Unbelievable...
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 2:48:31 PM UTC
Thank you Mr Underhill! There are a few folk out there who know a great deal about these editions and their published data was a huge help.
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 2:54:03 PM UTC

LanceFormation wrote:

Thank you Mr Underhill! There are a few folk out there who know a great deal about these editions and their published data was a huge help.

Yes you are correct sir, Berelach comes to mind.
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 3:33:19 PM UTC
LanceFormation
Maybe you can send one to me as a gift ?;

Joking

Incredible collection; congratulations !!
Some of the rebindings (especially the orange and blue ones) are just fabulous.

Do you have a collection of the subsequent printings of the 2nd HMCO Edition as well?
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 3:46:27 PM UTC
Wow! What a collection...
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 3:52:14 PM UTC
That is fantastic.
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 3:54:09 PM UTC
Agree with everyone else, fantastic collection and thank you very much for sharing!
22 May, 2021
2021-5-22 4:40:49 PM UTC
emilien, yes, I have the second editions as well...
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