Contents page in The Hobbit

Just checked on my copies.
I Confirm the typo in the 1954, and also in the 1951. It has been corrected in the 1955.

The A* is a signature mark, they have been in a books for a long time, but are no longer needed unless the book was hand printed and bound.

https://www.earlyprintedbooks.com/feature/signature-mark/

Thanks for the response. You pointed out similar marks in a previous post on early 1st edition printings of TLotR. I should have made the connection.

Descriptive Bibliography p22:

[A3c. Second edition ('fifth impression', 1951):] Probably in the 'seventh' impression (i.e. third impression of A3c, 1955), 'Fore and Water' in the table of contents, p. [9], was corrected to 'Fire and Water'; the reading 'what about your present?' was changed to 'what about your guess', p. 87, II. 26-7; and the note beginning 'If you are interested in Hobbits' was added at the end of the text, p. 315.

Slightly on-topic, I've been reading the Hobbit to my son before bed each night the last few nights. I'm using a random 1974 A&U hardback that is just a reading copy. I've been surprised by just how many typos there are in it. A couple of pages so far with multiples. I need to go back and find them and see if they are in the prior and later prints. Not sure if I'm just less tolerant at the moment, but I've found them quite distracting.