In an astonishing discovery, a first edition copy of J.R.R. Tolkien's iconic fantasy novel The Hobbit has fetched a remarkable 43 000 R1 million at auction.
This elusive edition, one of only 1 500 printed in 1937, was unearthed during a routine house clearance in Bristol, hidden away on an unassuming bookshelf, as per The Guardian .
The auction house, Auctioneum, which handled the sale, revealed that only a few hundred of these original copies are thought to have survived today. What makes this find especially thrilling is that the book was missing its dust jacket and went largely unnoticed until a specialist happened to inspect it closely.
Caitlin Riley, Auctioneum's rare books expert, recalled the moment she spotted the volume: 'It looked like an ordinary book at first, but once I started flipping through the pages, I realised it was a genuine first edition. It was a fantastic surprise.'
Bound in pale green cloth and featuring Tolkien's own black-and-white illustrations, this edition carries the charm of the professor's early work. Tolkien, born in Bloemfontein and a scholar at Oxford University when he penned The Hobbit , developed the richly detailed world of Middle-earth that would later expand into the legendary Lord of the Rings trilogy.