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In this description, "printing" and "impression" are used interchangeably.
Early editions of a book as popular and enduring as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit inevitably attract the attention and money of both book collectors and fans. Because a publisher cannot predict accurately how the public will receive a new author, they usually print a small first run and follow it with reprints as needed. Often this first run is called a "first edition". Technically, however, the first edition spans not only the first printing but all printings until the type is reset. In the collectibles market, normally it is the first printing that commands the bulk of attention and money. That is because it was printed in small quantity and under risk of failure in the market. The people who bought the first copies pioneered the book's popularity, and those copies are justly considered precious. While the same is true of The Hobbit, the curious history of the book complicates and broadens the market considerably.
Most books either receive immediate attention in the market, or fail. The successful sell most of their copies within a year or two of publication. Now and then a book sells well and continues to sell for many years. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were drastic exceptions to both patterns. Both works sold enough to induce the publishers to continue printing, but for the first twenty-five years of The Hobbit's life, and the first ten years of The Lord of the Rings, sales on both sides of the Atlantic amounted to little more than a few thousand copies per year. It was not until the mid 1960s that social trends flowered an acceptance and even hunger for the modern fantasy, which Tolkien had developed so long before almost on his own. An obscure author and his books exploded in popularity. Despite the fact that The Hobbit had already gone through fifteen printing runs and two distinct editions by then, suddenly all of them were collectible. By that time, printing presses were churning out far more copies every year than had been sold those first twenty-five.
Tolkien's publisher was George Allen & Unwin Ltd. of London. Houghton Mifflin of Boston and New York arranged to publish Tolkien's books in the United States. Since Houghton Mifflin did not Americanize the text, they were free either to set their own type or to import sheets from Allen & Unwin. In any case they bound their own volumes, usually distinctly from their British counterparts. The American versions differed from the British in one respect crucial to the collectibles market: beyond the first printing, most of Houghton Mifflin's impressions did not identify which printing run they came out of or even a copyright date. This failure has led to intense confusion in the collectibles market. Very few people can identify the Houghton Mifflin second editions, which were extant from 1951 to 1966. Hence people cannot be sure what they have or might be buying and therefore what it might be worth.
Very roughly, earlier printings are valued more than later. In particular, the first edition, with its very different account of Riddles in the Dark, is in great demand. However, the fifth overall impression, or the first printing of the second edition, seems to be garnering prices as high as the British fourth printing, which was the cheapest and most common of the first edition printings. Later second edition printings are valued much less than first edition printings or the first printing of the second edition.
The presence of the matching dust-jacket often doubles the value of any of these printings, particularly if it is in good shape. However, because the second American edition changes its binding color from printing to printing, they gain considerable charm displayed in array without their jackets.
Houghton Mifflin Co. of Boston and New York published the first American edition of The Hobbit in spring of 1938 following its September, 1937 debut in the United Kingdom from George Allen & Unwin LTD. For this first edition Houghton Mifflin printed the sheets in the United States, a practice they abandoned in later printings of The Hobbit and all printings of The Lord of the Rings until the mid 1960s.
Some consider the first American edition of The Hobbit to be the most beautifully designed of any edition. Houghton Mifflin chose to print it in a larger size and on heavier stock than Allen & Unwin's first edition, and they chose to include four color plates of Tolkien's original artwork. Margins are ample and the typesetting well crafted for readability. The lettering on the tan cloth cover is printed in deep blue. The bowing hobbit emblem on the front and the dwarf's hood emblem on the spine are filled with bright red. Regrettably, however, the publisher chose to print the end-paper maps in red only, instead of the black and red chosen by Allen & Unwin. They also mistakenly put the Wilderland map in front and the Lonely Mountain map in back, the reverse of the description in the text. This error seems to have been corrected eventually, since properly ordered examples have been seen in the last (assumed) printing of the first edition.
Surviving dust-jackets on the first edition are exceedingly rare. It is not known whether that is because of attrition or because some printings were not jacketed or because lots directed to some markets did not come with jackets. What is known is that jackets have been reported on more than one of the printings and most commonly on the first printing. The jacket is a medium blue field all around. The front announces the title in white, beneath which appears, in color and framed in red, Tolkien's illustration of Hobbiton. The reverse displays Tolkien's illustration of Smaug on his trove, also in color.
It seems evident that Houghton Mifflin printed the first edition several times. The earliest printing shows on the title page the same bowing hobbit emblem visible on the cover, but in outline. At some point, however, the publisher replaced the emblem on the title page with the rather less appealing seated flautist. (Some researchers state that the boots the hobbit wears in the emblem were acknowledged to conflict with the text's description of a bare-footed hobbit, prompting the publisher to replace it. While that's possible, it has been countered that the publisher left the bowing hobbit on the cover even while replacing it on the title page.) The first two printings mistakenly identify Chapter VII as Chapter VI on page 118. The third printing corrects the Chapter VII heading. A fourth distinct printing presents the Wilderland and Thor's maps as free leaves rather than end-paper paste-downs.
Some refer to these variations as "states" within the "first printing", and acknowledge only two of them: one with the bowing hobbit on the title page, and one with the seated flautist. Hammond and Anderson¹ for instance, only record two states. Houghton Mifflin's practice historically has been to place the publication year at the foot of the title page for the first printings of its first editions. All of the first edition Hobbit printings have the 1938 date on the title page, so researchers have been hesitant to ascribe different printings to them. Others reason, however, that Houghton Mifflin printed the volumes several distinct times between 1938 and the second edition of 1951. As evidence, each of the variations described in the preceding paragraph could not have come about during the course of a single printing run. Also, thirteen years elapsed between the first printing and the appearance of the second edition; it seems improbable that Houghton Mifflin would not have reprinted the book (presuming the arrangements with Allen & Unwin permitted). And finally, while the bowing hobbit (first printing) version appears on the market uncommonly, first editions as a whole show up scarcely less often than all the printings of the second edition.
In summary,
All printings of the first edition measure 15.0 x 21.0 cm. They contain 310 numbered pages.
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