A Holy Grail copy of The Hobbit has sold for an eye-watering £43,000 – over four times its estimate.
The book is one of only 1,500 copies printed in 1937 – the year it was first published.
The “astonishingly rare” find was discovered on a bookcase during a home clearance.
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Its pre-sale estimate was £10,000 but after selling for £43,000, it is believed to have set a record price for a first edition without a dust cover.
The Hobbit is one of the most successful children’s novels, with more than 100 million copies sold, and tells the story of Bilbo Baggins on a quest to find treasure.
The edition, found in Bristol, includes rare drawings by Tolkien himself.
It was sold to a private collector in the UK by auctioneers Auctioneum in Bath, Somerset, as reported by What’s The Jam.
Caitlin Riley, of Auctioneum, said: “Nobody knew it was there.
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“It was just a run-of-the-mill bookcase, containing the usual reading and reference books you’d expect to find.
“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes.
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“There are a few key details to look out for when spotting one of the first editions, and as I looked into each one, they were all there.
“When I realised what it was, my heart began pounding.
“It’s an unimaginably rare find.”
The book was from the family library of Hubert Priestley, a famous botanist in the 1930s.
Priestley had strong connections to the University of Oxford where Tolkien was a professor.
Caitlin added: “The popularity of The Hobbit has only grown since its first publication.
“The book was published to huge critical acclaim, and is one of the best-selling stories of all time.
“The subsequent Hobbit film series in the mid-2000s only further cemented its appeal, and brought the tale to a whole new audience.
“Being a children’s book, most of them have seen children’s hands – children’s colouring pens in some cases – so to have one that appears to be completely unread and never enjoyed is really, really astonishingly rare.”
First edition, first impressions of The Hobbit rarely come up for auction.
Out of the 1,500 printed, only a few hundred are believed to still remain.
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