The Hobbit

Notes
There were four impressions of the First Edition, all featuring Thror’s Map and the Map of Wilderland on the endpapers, together with the original version of the encounter with Gollum.

1st Impression 1937 – Includes the standard eight black and white illustrations plus The Hill and Mirkwood. No colour illustrations. 1.488 copies bound. An additional 21 copies were bound in paper covers - review copies?

2nd Impression 1937 – Includes four colour illustrations in addition to the standard eight black and white illustrations and Mirkwood. The black and white version of The Hill was removed from this and later printings. 1,900 copies bound. An additional 423 unbound copies were destroyed in a warehouse fire in November 1940.

3rd Impression 1942 – Includes a colour frontispiece in addition to the standard eight black and white illustrations. The black and white illustration of Mirkwood was removed from this and later printings. This was a lower quality edition produced to the Book Production War Economy Standard. 1.509 copies bound.

4th Impression 1946 – Identical to the 3rd Impression. 4,032 copies bound.

For further details see Printing and Binding The Hobbit.