THE HOBBIT, first edition, lives on!

Well, this is amusing.

I randomly had a reason to delve into Anthology of Children's Literature (5th edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1977), edited by Edna Johnson, Evelyn R. Sickels, et al, and I thought, "Well, this is odd! They have an excerpt from The Hobbit ... the 'Riddles in the Dark' chapter, no less."

So I had a quick look-see .... and discovered they were reprinting the original first edition text of that chapter! Never you mind that the revised 2nd edition of The Hobbit came out in 1951, or that The Lord of the Rings had firmly cemented Gollum's reputation as a sneaky sneaking sneakster in the popular imagination. No, they reprint the first edition text where Gollum, after losing the riddle context, apologizes profusely for having somehow lost the "present" Bilbo had won (i.e., the One Ring already in Bilbo's pocket), and so meekly leads Bilbo out of the Misty Mountains in recompense.

Given that this anthology is from Tolkien's American publisher, Houghton Mifflin, I can't imagine that the editors didn't know about Tolkien's revised second edition text, so I'm wondering if they just had reprint permission for all subsequent editions of their Anthology of Children's Literature. Probably a great deal cheaper than asking the Tolkien Estate, pwetty puh-lease, to let them have the revised 2nd edition text.

Comments

  1. David LenanderAugust 31, 2024 at 5:14 PM

    Yes, I think that my first contact with _The Hobbit_, as well as with _Alice in Wonderland_, Seredy's _The Good Master_, _Pippi Longstocking_, _Rabbit Hill_, _The Jungle Book_, Dr. Doolittle, and so many other great books was in some anthologies from my grandmother, which reprinted single chapters from many different books, along with fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and in v. 3, books for older readers, like _Kon Tiki_ and maybe _Treasure Island_. As a child reader I didn't understand, I think, at least at first, that I could find more of these stories in longer books, which I would later discover at the public library.

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