A facsimile of the first edition of The Hobbit,

1937 [On loan from a private collection].

The Hobbit was the first story Tolkien ever published set in his Middle-earth and the text in the first edition was significantly different from the book we read today. Besides many minor corrections and changes, Chapter 5 “The Riddles in the Dark” was totally rewritten, changing the general spirit and the character of Gollum, to better reflect the new role Tolkien had for him and his “precious” in his then upcoming Lord of the Rings. This truly shows that even after they had been published, Tolkien never stopped tinkering with his stories or his world.

Tolkien wrote a great number of stories, poems, and legends relating to Middle-earth as well as Old English literature. Many of his writings were not fully finalized during his life, but his son, Christopher, continued the work, becoming the chief editor of the Legendarium, the corpus of Tolkien's mythological writings as we know it today. A debt of gratitude is also owed to him for the many other works he published posthumously for his father, including The Silmarillion, and The History of Middle-earth.

 To see the books by Tolkien available in the Mullen library, click here.