29/03/2025 General News
I have written before about the appeal of first editions, which for collectors represent the ultimate manifestation of the love of the book as an object, the closest the reader can get to the author’s own actual intent.
Very rare first editions can sell for considerable sums, especially if they are signed by the author. For example, just a few weeks ago a fully-signed first edition set of J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy sold in London for a staggering £230,000 (plus 26% buyer’s premium).
Tolkien could only guess at how successful his work would be. In an austere post-war world, there was little money around to publish lavish three-book series, and although he started writing the books in 1949, it wasn’t until 1954 that the first was published.
Even then, to ensure publication, Tolkien had to agree to an unusual financial arrangement, foregoing an advance and initial royalties, but consenting instead to take a share of the profits once the initial cost of publication had been covered. This turned out to be a wise decision: the Lord of the Rings would go on to sell over 150 million copies.
The price paid for the autographed first editions is the highest ever for any Tolkien book or manuscript, although props from the movie version have sold for more. And it is that combination of enduring love of the books themselves and the fact that they have found a new audience via the cinema that means that his works are still in such demand today.
It is 88 years since the first book in the series, the Hobbit, was published, and this too is always a star lot in the saleroom. Which is why we are so excited to have a first edition in our April Book Sale.
Just 2,300 copies were originally printed for the publication in December 1937, and 423 of these were destroyed when a bomb fell on the binders during the London Blitz in November 1940. So they remain rare, and hence sought-after.
The second impression of the first edition (which is what we have in our sale) includes map endpapers, illustrations by Tolkien himself, and three coloured plates which were not included in the first impression.
The record price for a first edition of the Hobbit is £189,600, paid at an auction in Dallas last year. This copy was in pristine condition with its original dust jacket, and was signed by Tolkien.
But even more humble, well-read copies are still both in demand and valuable. The copy we have in our April sale has not been a museum piece: it is well-read and loved, with some fraying to the edges of pages, and it is missing its dust jacket. Even so, it has a pre-sale estimate of £1,500-£2500.
Peter Jackson’s movie version of The Lord of the Rings revitalised interest in the original books, but even without that cinematic adaptation, they would have remained a firm favourite in the public’s mind. I wonder if the same could be said for Ian Fleming’s James Bond books? This is a series where the literary versions only really came to the fore once 007 was established on the big screen.
With the Bond film franchise recently bought by Amazon for more than $1 billion, Bond remains big business. That is reflected by continued high demand for first editions of the books, and we have a number of these in our April sale, too: Dr No (estimate £500-£800), For Your Eyes Only (estimate £400-£500, Thunderball (estimate £100-£200) and Goldfinger and The Man With The Golden Gun (estimate £100-£150).
A final standout first edition in the sale is The House at Pooh Corner by A.A.Milne, published in 1928. This is another book which has spent its life being read rather than meticulously preserved (which although it does affect the price, is actually rather pleasing), and it has a pre-sale estimate of £150-£200.