Overview

• The copy sold at an online Auctioneum sale on August 6 for £43,000, more than triple its £10,000–£12,000 presale estimate.
• Of the original 1,500 first impressions printed in 1937, only a few hundred are believed to survive, making the edition exceptionally rare.
• Specialist Caitlin Riley identified the near-pristine 1937 first impression during a routine house clearance in Bristol earlier this year despite its missing dust jacket.
• The volume’s provenance links it to botanist Hubert Priestley’s Oxford circle and possibly to Tolkien through their mutual correspondence with C.S. Lewis.
• The £43,000 hammer price sets a new record for a jacketless first edition of The Hobbit and highlights robust competition in rare book auctions.