A first edition of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit, uncovered during a routine estate clearance in the UK city of Bristol, has fetched nearly $58,000 at auction—more than quadrupling initial estimates, per the Guardian. The volume, one of just 1,500 originals printed in 1937, was discovered by Auctioneum's rare-books specialist Caitlin Riley, who recognized its significance while scanning the shelves of an unremarkable bookcase. "I literally couldn't believe my eyes," she tells the New York Times, adding that she cried when she realized what she'd found. "How could it possibly be in and [among] all of this rubbish?"
The copy is bound in light green cloth and contains black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien, who was a professor at Oxford when he penned the fantasy classic. Though the book lacks its original dust jacket, collectors were undeterred, and international competition drove up the price before a private collector scooped up the coveted item. "Being a children's book, most of them have seen children's hands, children's coloring pens in some cases, so to have one that appears to be completely unread and never enjoyed is really, really astonishingly rare," Riley tells the BBC.
This edition came from the family library of Joseph Hubert Priestley, a botanist tied to Oxford and brother to Antarctic explorer Sir Raymond Priestley. Auctioneum noted possible connections among the botanist Priestley, Tolkien, and CS Lewis, all of whom were part of Oxford's academic circles. Only a few hundred first editions are believed to remain.
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The Hobbit has since achieved global fame, selling more than 100 million copies and inspiring a film trilogy. While this sale set a significant benchmark, it falls short of the $183,000 fetched in 2015 by a copy that included a note from Tolkien in the made-up language of Elvish. "It's the quintessential auction story," Riley tells the BBC. "Everyone dreams of finding a rare item hidden in plain sight, and here we are."
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