Hobbit Unwin Books 1966 PB

Never seen one despite many years of searching. I did read in the A&U correspondence archive that they had a lot of trouble with the binding, so perhaps the number that made it out of the bindery was much less than the 20,000 copies printed.

Alternative theory- I don't have my notes on the correspondence to hand, but I wonder if there was an error in the impression numbering similar to the hardback edition, and the 16th Impression doesn't actually exist?

Thanks for that Deagol. Much Appreciated. That seems to confirm my suspicions that it probably does not exist.

I have a 17th Impression and the entire printing history of the Hardback Edition is printed up to "Third Edition (Sixteenth Impression) 1966".

So it would kinda make sense that the "Seventeenth Impression" could be the first printing of this 1966 Paperback Edition.

Anyone have any differing thoughts?

re: the First Printing (16th Impression Stated) of the 1966 Paperback Edition of the Hobbit published by Unwin Books

It most certainly does exist - I have one here in my hand. I also have a fifteenth impression hardback (1965) and a hardback sixteenth impression (1966), and a Longman's edition.

My Unwin Books paperback is in Very Good condition; very clean white pages; unfaded cover illustration, with '8s 6d' on the front cover. A lovely copy, esp. considering the age - its only flaw being a slight crease on the upper cover.

The copyright page lists the entire history of TH, from 1937 onwards. This list concludes:

'Fifteenth impression 1965
Third edition (sixteenth impression) 1966'

Then, after the paragraph abot the Berne Convention, it reads:

'This edition c George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1966.'

Great! Nice one.

Glad to know that I am not searching for something that does not exist.

The number of these that actually exist must be considerably smaller than 20,000 as Deagol suggested.

Thanks Garm! The search goes on...........

It's great to have confirmation that copies are out there. The hunt goes on!

Hi, i have actualy the one that the link points to, it is from 1966 and it looks exactly the same

Would you have a photo of the copyright page?

Does it state "16th Impression 1966"?

After so many years without finding one, I don't think I can accept that it exists until I see it with my own eyes!!!

Many thanks.

P.S. There was also a 16th Impression sometime in 1973 (due to renumbering of impressions).

Can we not just ask garm to get his camera out?

BH

Christina and I have a copy also, a wedding gift from Rayner Unwin. A scan of the copyright page is below. I made the initial description of this edition for my Tolkien bibliography from the deposit copy in the British Library (acquired 11 July 1966).

Wayne




Edit: Trotter inserted picture directly into post, and if you look at the picture you can see two signatures through the page