Trotter Thanks a lot for your help and the recommendations! It will probably be hard to find the 4th edition for a decent price here in the Netherlands but I will try nevertheless. This edition is also glued? Is it a "perfect" glue or glued gatherings ? And wow you have two first editions! That's pretty impressive man!

Yes, it is glued, and it is glued gatherings.

I actually have seven first editions of The Hobbit in my collection, but some members of the site have more copies.

:O

By the way, is anything known about this edition by Houghton Mifflin?
https://www.hmhco.com/shop/books/petersons/9780395071229

I can't seem to find it on the TolkienBooks.net website. Is it a second impression facsimile? (given the fact it says it was released january 1938)

It would not be on http://tolkienbooks.net/ as that excellent site is UK Tolkien books, have a look at the equally excellent https://www.tolkienbooks.us/ which covers US and Canadian editions.

Ah of course, thanks man!

Any idea how come it is only 256 pages? Unfortunately the page doesn't say anything about the illustrations.
https://www.tolkienbooks.us/hob/us/hc/the-hobbit-1985

Berelach who runs the site, https://www.tolkienbooks.us/, is a member, and hopefully will be able to answer your questions.

TolkienNewbie wrote:
Any idea how come it is only 256 pages? Unfortunately the page doesn't say anything about the illustrations.
https://www.tolkienbooks.us/hob/us/hc/the-hobbit-1985

The UK 4th edition from George Allen & Unwin (1978) is also 256 pages, and has the same black and white illustrations as the 1985 Houghton Mifflin edition.

Khamûl wrote:
Glue has been part of bookmaking for centuries. I assume we mean pages that are part of gatherings, as opposed to modern perfect-bound "bindings"? Incidentally, Luna Press' Tolkien's Library is probably one of these most egregious examples of this I've ever seen. It's literally a complete functional paperback tipped into casing.

Tolkien's Library is from a small publisher who can't afford to have thousands (or tens of thousands) of copied printed up at a time, so it comes from a Print-On-Demand service which almost always only offer perfect-bound options. You are correct, in that the same technique is used for both - they just bind it into card covers or the board casing based on the order. I am sure they keep copies in stock and printed up a bunch for the release, but functionally it is the same quality you get from other PoD services. Even my HarperColling Index for HoMe is perfect bound, glued pages with no gatherings.