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  • Posts Tagged ‘The Hobbit’

    BIBLIOPHILES AND COLLECTORS GATHER HERE

    Monday, April 30th, 2018
    Babe Ruth, Christy Ring, Tolkien and the commonplace book of Fr Thomas O”Keeffe, pp at the South Parish in Cork from 1829 to 1847 all feature at Fonsie Mealy’s Rare Book and Collectors sale at the Ormonde Hotel, Kilkenny at 10.30 on May 2. Among more than 800 lots there is sporting memorabilia including a baseball bat given by Babe Ruth to Frank McGrath, manager of the Tipperary team on their visit to the US in 1926 and a souvenir programme for the opening of the new Glen Rovers club in 1953 signed by Christy Ring.
    A rare 1937 first edition of The Hobbit in good condition is estimated at 20,000-30,000.  There is a first edition of The Dark signed by John McGahern and the first American edition of My Left Foot by Christy Brown.  The commonplace book by Fr. O’Keeffe, friend of the sculptor John Hogan – a remarkable example of whose work exists in the South Parish Church – offers jottings, sermons, an alphabetical list of Cork streets according to parish and a draft to the introduction of the poems of Jeremiah Joseph Callanan (1795-1892).

    (See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for April 26 and April 16, 2018)

    A first edition of The Hobbit  UPDATE: THIS MADE 29,000 AT HAMMER

    A programme for the opening of the new Glen Rovers club in 1953 signed by Christy Ring  UPDATE: THIS MADE 280 AT HAMMER

    FIRST EDITION OF THE HOBBIT MAKES NEW WORLD RECORD

    Thursday, June 4th, 2015
    A letter in elvish.

    A letter in elvish.

    The first edition of The Hobbit.

    The first edition of The Hobbit.

    A first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” from 1937 sold for a new world record price of £137,000 at Sotheby’s in London today.  This more than doubled the pre-sale estimate of £50,000-70,000.

    Presented as a gift from the author to one of his first students at Leeds University in the 1920s, Miss Katherine (“Kitty”) Kilbride, it is inscribed with a handwritten note from the author in Elvish. The author continued to send letters, cards and books to her throughout his life.

    The presentation copy inscribed by the author as follows: “K.M. Kilbride, with greeting from J.R.R. Tolkien” and four lines in Elvish.  The Hobbit was first published in London by George Allen and Unwin Ltd. in 1937.  The previous world record for a first edition of the story was £50,000 set in 2008.