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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973)
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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Bodleian Library,
Oxford
University
United Kingdom

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.