Report from The Guardian.
Twice as nice ... the inscribed first edition of The Hobbit which sold today. Photograph: Sang Tan/PA
When Tolkien's original pint-sized hero Bilbo Baggins set out in search of fame and fortune, he would not have known that the most valuable treasure he would bring back would prove to be the tale of his adventures. But now the halfling hero's bulging coffers have swollen further after a rare first edition of Tolkien's The Hobbit, or There and Back Again sold at auction for £60,000.
A rare 1937 first issue of the first edition of the childrens' classic was sold at Bonhams earlier today, going for twice its pre-sale estimate. The copy, inscribed by the author with a message of thanks to his friend Elaine Griffiths, who helped the author see the work into print, went to an anonymous telephone bidder. The £60,000 price tag sets a new world record for signed copies of the book, which remains Tolkien's bestselling work, having sold over 100m copies since its first publication.
Also included in the sale was the first foreign language edition of The Hobbit,
also inscribed to Elaine Griffiths. The Swedish version, dating from 1947,
went for £1,560, almost four times its estimated sale price.
The last known photograph of Tolkien, taken by his grandson Michael on August 9 1973, was also included in the auction. The photograph shows the author in the Botanical
Gardens of Oxford, where Tolkien taught Anglo-Saxon language and literature,
leaning against his favourite tree, the Black Pine he named Laocoon after
the mythical Trojan prophet. The photograph was a gift to Elaine Griffiths
from Tolkien's daughter Priscilla, who wrote on the back "For Elaine
with love from Priscilla".
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