The 1942 Children's Book Club edition, in the original and very scarce dust jacket that Tolkien judged "hideous."
Publisher and Year: London: The Children's Book Club, 1942
Edition: First book club edition, using sheets from the third impression. In 1942, Allen and Unwin printed 4,500 sets of sheets of the third impression. Of these, 3,000 were supplied to the bookseller Foyles for the book club edition. These copies were bound independently with cheaper materials and used a simpler design than the standard trade edition, omitting the Smaug illustration of the boards, the endpaper maps, and the frontispiece. The book club edition was sold at 2s 6d, which was considerably cheaper than the trade edition priced 7s 6d. (Hammond & Anderson, A3, p. 16; Scull & Hammond, 2006; The Annotated Hobbit, Revised in 2002)
Condition and Description: Octavo, 7.5” x 5”, publisher’s yellow cloth, gilt lettering to the spine, 310 pp. Boards a little bowed and with bumping to the edges. Gilt lettering remains reflective. Spine ends faded where losses to the dust jacket left the cloth exposed to light. Foxing to the top edge of the text block and just a hint of foxing to the other edges. Secure hinges and binding. Mild spine lean. Slight offsetting of the jacket flaps onto the endpapers. Name in ink and inscription in pencil to the front free endpaper; otherwise free of prior owner's markings. Dust jacket with wear to the extremities; small losses to the edges and tips; a half-inch split to the upper-rear fold; modest fading to the spine; light soiling; and a touch of foxing to the verso. Preserved in archival mylar.
"Surely the paper wasted on that hideous dust-cover could have been better used." - J.R.R. Tolkien, in a 1945 letter to Stanley Unwin.
The Children's Book Club dust jacket is notorious both for its scarcity and for its design, which Tolkien detested. His objection is easily understood, as the depiction of Bilbo as a black-tie dandy bears no relation to the text. The bubble lettering and garish orange color do not reflect the tone of the story, and could not be further from the iconic dust jacket that Tolkien had designed himself. The contents of the flaps and rear panel have nothing to do with the book either, with that space reserved entirely for advertisements for BBC radio programs and other club titles.
The cheap materials of this edition make it difficult to find in collectible condition, and considerably harder in the original jacket. Just a single jacketed copy appears in the auction records indexed by the extensive RareBookHub database, and such copies are rarely offered in the trade.
As a cost saving measure, the publisher decided to forgo the endpaper maps that were present in the trade copies, which surely caused confusion for readers encountering the following line on p. 30: “(Look at the map at the beginning of this book, and you will see there the runes in red.)”
Inventory ID: 337 - 815 - 118
The 1942 Children's Book Club edition, in the original and very scarce dust jacket that Tolkien judged "hideous."
Publisher and Year: London: The Children's Book Club, 1942
Edition: First book club edition, using sheets from the third impression. In 1942, Allen and Unwin printed 4,500 sets of sheets of the third impression. Of these, 3,000 were supplied to the bookseller Foyles for the book club edition. These copies were bound independently with cheaper materials and used a simpler design than the standard trade edition, omitting the Smaug illustration of the boards, the endpaper maps, and the frontispiece. The book club edition was sold at 2s 6d, which was considerably cheaper than the trade edition priced 7s 6d. (Hammond & Anderson, A3, p. 16; Scull & Hammond, 2006; The Annotated Hobbit, Revised in 2002)
Condition and Description: Octavo, 7.5” x 5”, publisher’s yellow cloth, gilt lettering to the spine, 310 pp. Boards a little bowed and with bumping to the edges. Gilt lettering remains reflective. Spine ends faded where losses to the dust jacket left the cloth exposed to light. Foxing to the top edge of the text block and just a hint of foxing to the other edges. Secure hinges and binding. Mild spine lean. Slight offsetting of the jacket flaps onto the endpapers. Name in ink and inscription in pencil to the front free endpaper; otherwise free of prior owner's markings. Dust jacket with wear to the extremities; small losses to the edges and tips; a half-inch split to the upper-rear fold; modest fading to the spine; light soiling; and a touch of foxing to the verso. Preserved in archival mylar.
"Surely the paper wasted on that hideous dust-cover could have been better used." - J.R.R. Tolkien, in a 1945 letter to Stanley Unwin.
The Children's Book Club dust jacket is notorious both for its scarcity and for its design, which Tolkien detested. His objection is easily understood, as the depiction of Bilbo as a black-tie dandy bears no relation to the text. The bubble lettering and garish orange color do not reflect the tone of the story, and could not be further from the iconic dust jacket that Tolkien had designed himself. The contents of the flaps and rear panel have nothing to do with the book either, with that space reserved entirely for advertisements for BBC radio programs and other club titles.
The cheap materials of this edition make it difficult to find in collectible condition, and considerably harder in the original jacket. Just a single jacketed copy appears in the auction records indexed by the extensive RareBookHub database, and such copies are rarely offered in the trade.
As a cost saving measure, the publisher decided to forgo the endpaper maps that were present in the trade copies, which surely caused confusion for readers encountering the following line on p. 30: “(Look at the map at the beginning of this book, and you will see there the runes in red.)”
Inventory ID: 337 - 815 - 118
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