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Comment by pavlov | Hacker News Reader

Tove Jansson, author of the Moomins, also illustrated "The Hobbit" in the 1960s.

Her version turned out controversial because Gollum is a giant compared to Bilbo. Turns out Tolkien hadn't described Gollum's size anywhere, and the author actually reworded future editions of the book to make it clear that Gollum is a small creature.

You can see the image here:

https://www.thepopverse.com/jrr-tolkien-the-hobbit-tove-jans...

In my opinion Jansson's "Hobbit" is a great interpretation by a legendary artist, and this Gollum controversy has overshadowed it too much.

The Soviet 1970s version (the OP link here) has an obvious debt to Jansson's illustrations, but the style is much more conventional and stiff. Jansson's linework and compositions are exquisite.

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Fascinating - Jansson's artwork is lovely. Thank you for sharing it!

I think the huge Gollum is a very understandable misinterpretation, but I think it's likely false the text she worked from was ambiguous about Gollum's size.

If she was working from the 1951 revision, which seems likely if she was working in the 60s, then there is an explicit cue in the text showing that Gollum must be roughly Bilbo's size, when Bilbo is escaping the caves:

> Straight over Gollum’s head he jumped, seven feet forward and three in the air...

If Bilbo could jump over Gollum with a three-foot leap, Gollum cannot be a giant.

That said, it's well after the passage she illustrated, and would require a pretty attentive reader to catch, so as I said, the mistake is certainly understandable.

Additional caveat that I've not read the second edition of The Hobbit, only more recent ones, so it's conceivable that passage wasn't _exactly_ as I've quoted it.

I strongly suspect was largely as written, however, and even without the explicit numbers, if Bilbo jumps over Gollum, the inference remains largely the same.

> If Bilbo could jump over Gollum with a three-foot leap, Gollum cannot be a giant.

Agree (although Gollum was crouched down)

> I strongly suspect was largely as written, however, and even without the explicit numbers, if Bilbo jumps over Gollum, the inference remains largely the same

I'm guessing that the jump wasn't in the first edition at all, where Bilbo and Gollum apparently parted amicably.

Also the ring fits both Gollum and Bilbo, which limits how different in size they could be.

(LOTR says the ring can change size, but this wasn't discussed in the Hobbit, and presumably hadn't occurred to Tolkien yet when he wrote it).

Thumb/pinkie?

Does Gollum even wear the ring in the original Hobbit? Or does he just carry his precious around?

It’s not specified - he never has the Ring in the Hobbit - Bible finds it before we meet him.

In LotR it’s revealed that he rarely wore it anymore by that time.

Bilbo doesn't see him wear it, but he's described as having put it on to steal goblin children for food. So he does wear it in the books.

Its on such an expedition that the ring "slips" from him, further suggesting the ring is actually not only his size, but a little large.

> Its on such an expedition that the ring "slips" from him, further suggesting the ring is actually not only his size, but a little large.

It's heavily implied in LOTR that the ring is able to change it's size to cause itself to slip from a person's finger, though that's somewhat out of scope and the illustrator may not have read that.

It's unthinkable that a single, unchanging ring size would fit both Sauron and Gollum.

Sauron is known to shapeshift but maybe the dirty secret all along is that he’s hobbit-sized.

>Her version turned out controversial because Gollum is a giant compared to Bilbo. Turns out Tolkien hadn't described Gollum's size anywhere

Cain and Abel, whom Deagol and Smeagol (Gollum) parallel, may have been giant themselves, given that Adam (their father) is specified in certain religious /apocryphal texts as being 60-100 cubits tall, or 90-150 feet.

that's a wild theory, considering that Tolkien himself described Gollum to be "a small, slimy creature" after the revisions, probably because of Jansson's depiction of him. and although the parallel is clear between many characters of the Hobbit and the Bible, do you have any credible sources that Tolkien took inspiration from apocryphal texts (or in this case the Hadith) ?

Not in this specific case. There are other examples that could be brought up, such as the Gift of Men (death), which may draw on the Book of Jubilees which suggests that death was given to man to limit wickedness and allow for renewal. Or Book of Enoch and the fall of Numenor. "Credible sources" will be difficult to procure as Tolkien notably avoided citing specific influences when discussing his works

> the author actually reworded future editions of the book to make it clear that Gollum is a small creature

The primary retconning occurred in 1951, when the encounter in The Hobbit between Bilbo and Gollum was rewritten to be confrontational rather than amicable, because TLOTR now needed the Ring to have a malevolent influence. The retconning is reflected in Bilbo's apology in the Council of Elrond to those (i.e. Gloin, but implicitly the readers) who may have heard a different version of his story. I'd love to see a first edition of the Hobbit to see what Tolkien actually did say about Gollum.

[Edit]. Just checked my (third edition) copy of The Hobbit. It only says that Gollum was "a small slimy creature" who "had a little boat". There aren't any other descriptions of their relative size, except that Bilbo actually jumps over Gollum's head when escaping him (Gollum is crouched down at this point), as a sibling comment has just observed.

https://www.ringgame.net/riddles.html

I don’t find “small” in reference to Gollum, but the leap does provide some maximum size limits.

There is a Facsimile Gift Edition which is pretty affordable:

https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Facsimile-Gift-Tolkien-author/...

Or, the differences in the texts are pretty thoroughly hashed out in:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12973638-the-history-of-...

which contains an annotated (and analyzed) text of the first edition.

I can see why one would think Gollum was huge early on. Without the context of the Lord of the Rings (where it’s established he was something like a hobbit before becoming Gollum), and also the fact that he ate goblins who wandered in his area of the caves, one might easily guess he was huge.

Most books are, sadly, quite worthless nowadays (monetary value). But the Tove Jansson illustrated, swedish edition of Bilbo is still a sought-after book that usually goes for hundreds of dollars.

Here is an ongoing auction on Tradera (the swedish ebay), currently at SEK 3050 (~$320):

https://www.tradera.com/item/341571/686383148/j-r-r-tolkien-...

>Most books are, sadly, quite worthless nowadays (monetary value).

I am not sure I understand. Aren't books "worthless" because they are readily available? Books are only expensive if they are rare (out of print, special limited edition, hand made or labor intensive, author signed, etc.). I don't think I would want "most" books to be rare and difficult to obtain.

This is only partly true. The fact that the OP is referring to is the fact that books aren't sought after. Many books that have been bought for a 100 dollars in 1980 are worth only a few dollars nowadays even if they are relevant. Not many people look for used books.

There are plenty of books which are scarce but not sought after. Not necessarily because they lack intrinsic value but simply because they are forgotten. Beautifully crafted antique books which can be bought for almost nothing nowadays since the collector’s value isn’t there.

Not my experience - the Victorian books I bought cheap as a teenager I wouldn't even attempt to replace these days. Maybe the books I'm interested in held their value for some reason. (Just picked one at random, the exact binding I have isn't in abe, but the two closest, less decorative examples are 135GBP and 195GBP).

If you find someone who has cataloged and listed what they have, especially of “pre-ISBN” books you’re going to have a certain price floor. And if you want a book, likely others do, too.

But you also can find them and garage and thrift stores, languishing unsold.

Wonder Books has a concept of how to save them: https://booksbythefoot.com/about/

Which perhaps people buying books because how they look on the shelf is bad, but is it worse than the giant recycling grinder machine turning them into pulp to fuel Amazon’s Mordor-esque delivery furnaces?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to sell, or even give away, books. In Stockholm, Sweden, where I am most familiar with the situation, most charity second-hand stores no longer accept hardcover books at all. The monetary value of most second-hand books is so low that many end up being thrown away instead of recirculated.

Of course, there are rare antiquarian books that always find a buyer, but they are quite few. And perhaps nobody will mourn the vast number of cheap crime novels thrown away every day, but there is so much more: good, beautiful, high-quality books that happen to be out of fashion for the moment. These, too, are being thrown away.

It was a long time since public libraries aimed to maintain a somewhat curated (or complete-ish) collection. Nowadays it is all about statistics. If books are not borrowed often enough, they are removed from the shelves and disappear.

Perhaps I am overly pessimistic, but I fear that many, many books will, for all intents and purposes, be lost. There are so many books that aren't scanned/digitized.

Wow, printed in 1994

Yeah, look at that! Fourteenth edition. Then it stayed in print for more than 30 years. I guess earlier editions are even more expensive.

A bit strange though. So many editions should mean there are quite a few in circulation and that they aren't that rare, or pricey.

Or there is _The Old English Exodus_ which is four figures (and annoyingly, the son of the author gainsaid my request for permission to reprint).

I always thought that the passages that talk about Smeagol before he was corrupted by the ring - made it rather easy to think of him as a hobbit or maybe a human.

Those come from the Lord of the Rings where Gandalf makes it clear that Gollum is/was a Hobbit or a very close relation.

What an incredible thing, had no idea this existed!

Nice! any more of her illustrations?

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