Overview

• Caitlin Riley of Auctioneum spotted the nearly flawless 1937 first-impression copy during a routine clean-out of a Bristol home earlier this month.
• The hammer price of £43,000 at Auctioneum in Bath translated to over £52,000 once auctioneer fees were added.
• Only 1,500 first impressions of The Hobbit were printed in September 1937, and just a few hundred are believed to remain in collectible condition.
• The volume’s provenance links it to Oxford’s Priestley family, suggesting a possible connection to Tolkien through his friend C.S. Lewis.
• A Tolkien-inscribed first edition fetched £137,000 at Sotheby’s in 2015, underscoring the strong market for rare Tolkien collectibles.