I recently bought myself the facsimile gift addition of The Hobbit and for those of you who don’t know what this edition is, it’s The Hobbit in its original form. The version that we’re all familiar with is in fact not the same one the first round of readers had.
Harper Collins released a facsimile edition a couple years ago but what makes this release special is all the extra bits included.
This special commemorative gift set includes the first edition, so that readers of all ages – not just ‘children between the ages of 5 and 9’, as Rayner Unwin famously declared in his report on the original submission – can finally enjoy Tolkien’s story as it originally appeared. It also includes an exclusive CD of archive recordings that capture Tolkien reading from The Hobbit, a special copy of Thror’s map which reveals the secret moon-runes when held to the light, and an accompanying booklet that relates the history of The Hobbit, and includes connected writings by JRR Tolkien.
When I saw an image of this edition last month I immediately had to know more because the pretty lenticular (I hope I’m using the correct word) image of the original book cover sucked me in. Since I collect Tolkien books I’ve accumulated quite a lot of different copies of The Hobbit but I can honestly say that I don’t have anything like the facsimile edition.
Only 1,500 copies were printed in the first run and unless you have a dragon’s hoard worth of gold you probably don’t own a copy (myself included). Thank Eru for Harper Collins for releasing this book since most of us aren’t as rich as Smaug!
The biggest difference between the original and later edition is the Riddles in the Dark chapter. As a child, this chapter terrified me. Picturing Gollum’s glowing eyes and feet flapping in the water was utterly terrifying, and in the original he seems almost…nice? Well, at least compared to the Gollum we all know.
Instead of offering to show Bilbo out of the Goblin caves if he loses the riddle game, he offers to give Bilbo the ring as a gift (notice I didn’t capitalize “ring” since at this point it wasn’t the One Ring yet!). Gollum ends up respecting the rules of riddles to the T and shows Bilbo the way out and they simply part their ways. It was strange reading this because I still expected Gollum to lash out and try to kill Bilbo. The reason for the change was so that The Hobbit would better connect with The Lord of the Rings. We can conclude that the version where Gollum was willing to give the ring as a present was just Bilbo’s way of covering up the events, right?
I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t read The Hobbit in years. The last time was probably back before An Unexpected Journey was released! So…it’s been a while. I’d read certain moments and chapters occasionally but haven’t done a complete reread in a long time. During this read through I actually found myself appreciating the Hobbit film trilogy A LOT more which completely took me by surprise. I ended up connecting a lot more with the characters, especially the dwarves and Bard, which made reading the story a lot more enjoyable. There are still A LOT of book moments I really missed seeing on the big screen including the “starving scene”. Please tell me you know exactly what I’m talking about! And I forgot how funny Bilbo is! He’s already my favorite Tolkien character but my appreciation for him skyrocketed after I finished reading.
So do I recommend that you buy this edition? 100% YES! Even if you own one or two (or 50) copies already, this will still be a very unique item in your collection.
The Hobbit Facsimile Gift Edition retails for £50.00 and for those who are interested, I found my copy from Amazon for about $45 USD.
The book is also available on the Official Tolkien Book Shop.
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