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John
Ronald Reuel Tolkien (18921973)
Original design for the dust jacket of
The Hobbit or There and Back Again
c.1936
MS Tolkien Drawings 32r
© Bodleian Library, University of Oxford
and the Trustees of the J.R.R. Tolkien Copyright
Trust 2001
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J.R.R.
Tolkien's
The Hobbit
c.1936
John
Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892 in South
Africa. At school he was introduced to Anglo-Saxon
and Chaucerian English, and also began to read
the Norse Sagas. In 1911 Tolkien went to Oxford
University, and graduated in 1915 with a first
class honours degree in English language and literature.
From
1925 to 1945 Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth
Professor of Anglo-Saxon Studies at Oxford University
and, from 1945 until his retirement in 1959, the
Merton Professor of English Language and Literature.
Tolkien wrote The Hobbit in his first years
at Oxford with the encouragement of his close
friend C.S. Lewis, famous for his children's series
The Chronicles of Narnia. The Hobbit was
published in 1937, when the London publishers
George Allen & Unwin printed it on the glowing
recommendation of Rayner Unwin, the ten-year-old
son of the chairman, Stanley Unwin. Rayner was
paid one shilling to read and report on the book
and stated that it: '
should appeal to
all children between the ages of 5 and 9.' When
it appeared in print, it was immediately recognised
as one of the greatest children's stories ever
written.
Not
overly confident of his artistic skills, Tolkien
submitted this dust jacket as a draft, simply
to convey his ideas for the cover of The Hobbit.
The notes in ink taking up the left and right
margins are mainly concerned with the colour scheme,
especially the red that was the original colour
of the dragon and sun. His notes state that the
red could be eliminated at the publishers' discretion;
a note by the latter'Ignore red'confirms
their decision, and only the pinkish tinge of
the sun is evidence of the original colour. The
runes around the border, intended to be magical
in appearance, read: 'The Hobbit or There and
Back Again, being the record of a year's journey
made by Bilbo Baggins; compiled from his memoirs
by J.R.R. Tolkien and published by George Allen
& Unwin.' This dust jacket design was accepted
and used more or less as submitted, and has remained
familiar to generations of child and adult readers
to this day.
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