27/09/2025 General News
Earlier this year we were very excited to have an early edition of J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Hobbit consigned to one of our Book Sales, writes Emily Turner. Despite it being the second impression and in pretty used condition, it still sold for £3,000. So imagine our feelings when a first edition, first impression of the book was consigned for our October Book Sale.
Very rare first editions can sell for considerable sums, especially if they are signed by the author. Earlier this year a fully-signed first edition set of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy sold in London for a staggering £230,000 (plus 26% buyer’s premium).
Tolkien could only guess at how successful his work would be. In an austere post-war world, there was little money around to publish lavish three-book series, and although he started writing the books in 1949, it wasn’t until 1954 that the first was published.
The price paid for the autographed first editions is the highest ever for any Tolkien book or manuscript, although props from the movie version have sold for more. And it is that combination of enduring love of the books themselves and the fact that they have found a new audience via the cinema that means that his works are still in such demand today.
It is 88 years since the prequel to The Ring, The Hobbit, was published, and this too is always a star lot in the saleroom. Just 2,300 copies were originally printed for the publication in 1937, and 423 of these were destroyed when a bomb fell on the binders during the London Blitz in November 1940. So they remain rare, and hence sought-after.
The record price for a first edition of the Hobbit is £189,600, paid at an auction in Dallas last year. This copy was in pristine condition with its original dust jacket, and was signed by Tolkien.
The volume we have in our October sale is not in pristine condition – it is lacking its dust jacket – but nevertheless we are already seeing considerable interest from collectors and dealers from across the UK and further afield. It does have all eight black and white plates plus an additional one, very important for serious bibliophiles.
We have put a conservative estimate of £8,000-£12,000 on the book; it may very well sell for much more than that.
In the same sale we have two other really interesting lots. The first is an early (seventh) edition of Isaac Walton and Charles Cotton’s famous The Compleat Angler, whose expressive subtitle is ‘Contemplative Man's Recreation Being a Discourse on Rivers, Fish-Ponds, Fish and Fishing’.
Published in London in 1808, this edition is a large paper copy with engraving and extra illustrated by the insertion of proofs on India paper. It is attractively bound in contemporary green Moroccan, stamped in gilt with a gilt decorative border and foliage with fish at the corners. Our pre-sale estimate is £4,000-£6,000.
Finally, a lot with considerable local interest: a collection of the Paston Letters edited by Sir William Fenn and published in 1789. This lot is particularly interesting because it comes with Fenn's original manuscript letters (privately published in 1789) and other related original material, including a letter from Fenn.
The volumes have the bookplate for William Frere, nephew of Fenn, and first master of Downing College Cambridge. The material has been in Frere's family ever since and is being offered for sale for the first time. The pre-sale estimate is £400-£500.