Tolkien’s Little-Known Original Drawings for the First Edition of “The Hobbit”

themarginalian.org

101 points·Brajeshwar··9 comments

Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien (smithsonianmag.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31757452

Submitted by bryanrasmussen | 9 hours ago | 227 points | 36 comments

Little-known? My edition of The Hobbit is illustrated with these. In fact, quite a lot of editions are.

I guess what this means is that the book is little-known.

Yeah, I have one of these on a bedside table. That said, I can’t claim I knew Tolkien himself painted it so clearly I do know little.

The post is from 2011, so i would expect them to have entered much wider circulation now.

These illustrations were used in the first edition in 1937. My edition is from 1992. I don't think frequency of use has changed at all.

In that case I guess that the images in the article aren't the 'never before seen' (in 2011) ones that are meant to have been included in the publicised book.

In fact I didn't know that book existed, added to my wish list XD

These three books probably cover most, if not all, of the art JRR Tolkien created for Middle-Earth: "The Art of The Hobbit" (the book mentioned in the link), "The Art of The Lord of the Rings" and "Tolkien: Maker of Middle Earth".

I have a copy of the American one which was drawn in haste by an artist who hadn't read the book, and that has an emu on the cover.

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