London: HarperCollins, 1950. A very rare first printing of the Alan Lee illustrated edition, signed both by the artist and by Rayner Unwin, son of the publisher Stanley Unwin: it was Rayner’s enthusiastic book report on the manuscript of The Hobbit that convinced his father to proceed with publication of the story. Unwin thereafter requested a follow-up volume, which - after the rejection of The Silmarillion - emerged in the mid 1950s as The Lord of the Rings. 8vo., pp.1193,7 (maps), brown cloth, gilt, colour frontispiece and plates, red ribbon bookmark; half title inscribed ‘To Sheila / Alan Lee / Rayner Unwin’, a few leaves show a tiny crease to their upper corner, there is a ‘soft’ crease to the lower corners of pp.1035-1106, small dots of foxing to top edges, and light foxing to fore-edges, with slight pale mark to upper edge of front board, a very good copy of this exceptionally scarce volume, in a very good unclipped dust-jacket, which is lightly rubbed and frilled to the edges, with a few superficial impressions made to the panels.