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View Full Version : first edition Hobbit sold for £137,000


Alcuin
06-09-2015, 04:22 AM
A first edition of The Hobbit given by JRR Tolkien to one of his former students in 1937 has more than doubled the world record for a copy of the author’s first novel, selling at auction for £137,000. (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jun/05/hobbit-first-edition-with-jrr-tolkiens-inscription-doubles-sales-record) (US$ 209,400 at today’s exchange rate)

“[T]he copy [was] given by Tolkien to Katherine Kilbride, taught by the author at Leeds University in the 1920s … Kilbride’s includes an inscription by the author in Old English, identified by John D Rateliff, author of The History of The Hobbit, as an extract from Tolkien’s The Lost Road.”

There is a reproduction of the poem in Old English at the link.

Alcuin
06-10-2015, 01:53 PM
Facsimile of the inscription.

Note the striking visual similarity of Tolkien’s Old English to Tengwar.

http://zarkanya.net/Tolkien/pix/TolkienInscribeLarge.jpg