The Hobbit or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien, First American Edition, 1938

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Hobbit or There and Back Again. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1938. First American edition, first impression. Octavo. In publisher's original tan cloth boards with blue titles and red embossing to front and spine. Illustrated. Housed in a custom archival 1/4 red leather and tan cloth clamshell, with raised bands, gilt titles, and gilt tooling to the spine, red embossed Smaug on front.  This is the first American edition, first impression of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic The Hobbit or There and Back Again. This printing was published by Houghton Mifflin Company in 1938, only one year after the British edition was released. The first American edition is illustrated with a color frontispiece, three color plates, and 9 black and white illustrations, all by Tolkien, while the British edition has none of the color plates. This 310-page novel is presented here in its original tan cloth boards, with blue embossed titles and red embossed illustration to the front board and sp