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Hobbit Cover Mystery
2 Sep, 2023
2023-9-2 10:46:48 PM UTC
2023-9-2 10:46:48 PM UTC
Hello!
I have a mystery to solve.
I'm a long time fan of The Hobbit and LOTR and have decided to get a tattoo of Tolkien's wonderful drawing of Smaug from the cover of the 1st edition of The Hobbit. This is where I noticed something puzzling.
There is an edition floating around where Smaug's wings have details in them. It's even on the Wikipedia page as the primary image of the first edition. I've looked everywhere to see where this could have come from and explored multiple printings and editions to find out which is the true version of Smaug to no avail.
There are a couple of images floating around of this printing with the extra detail in the wings, but they seem to all be of the same book.
Any information or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for your time!
-Evan
I have a mystery to solve.
I'm a long time fan of The Hobbit and LOTR and have decided to get a tattoo of Tolkien's wonderful drawing of Smaug from the cover of the 1st edition of The Hobbit. This is where I noticed something puzzling.
There is an edition floating around where Smaug's wings have details in them. It's even on the Wikipedia page as the primary image of the first edition. I've looked everywhere to see where this could have come from and explored multiple printings and editions to find out which is the true version of Smaug to no avail.
There are a couple of images floating around of this printing with the extra detail in the wings, but they seem to all be of the same book.
Any information or help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for your time!
-Evan
Hello and welcome to the site. Here are the images of Smaug that appear in the hobbit and history of the hobbit. All variants of how Tolkien drew him. The first image is Smaug as he appears on the boards of the 1st print hobbit.
It might be helpful to show the images you are talking about so that we have a better understanding of your question.
It might be helpful to show the images you are talking about so that we have a better understanding of your question.
He's talking about this image that wikipedia says is the "1st edition". Looking at the wings, there are the three "rib" lines on each wing that I have personally never seen before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hobbit
That’s weird, don’t know where this Wikipedia image was taken from. Here is the final binding image from Art of the Hobbit.
I have looked through my UK prints of the hobbit prints 4-16 and none of the boards look like this.
I have looked through my UK prints of the hobbit prints 4-16 and none of the boards look like this.
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