The Hobbit
di
J.R.R. Tolkien
Ballantine Books, New York, 1° ed. 1965,
4° ristampa 1965
Edizione riveduta
Illustrazione di Barbara Remington
Brossura
Note di
copertina
In
this delightful and enthralling tale, J.R.R. Tolkien first created the
imperishable world of fantasy called Middle-earth and those charming,
lilliputian creatures – the Hobbits – whose adventures continue in “The Lord of
the Rings.”
‘The
Hobbit belongs to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save
that each admits us to a world of its own- a world that seems to have been
going on before we stumbled into it but which, once found by the right reader,
becomes indispensable to him. Its place is with 'Alice and The Wind in the
Willows.' ... Prediction is dangerous, but 'The Hobbit' may well prove a
classic.'
-London.
Times Literary Supplement
Ballantine
books is the paperbound publisher of the Quthorized Editions of "The
Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings"
Revised
Edition
STATEMENT
FROM THE AUTHOR
"This
paperback edition, and no other, has been published with my consent and
co-operation. Those who approve of courtesy (at least) to living authors will
purchase it, and no other." 
Questa edizione, come molti collezionisti
tolkieniani sapranno, presenta due versioni: con e senza “leone”.
La storia è ben nota in quanto fu lo stesso Tolkien
a sollevarla all’indomani della pubblicazione negli Stati Uniti nel 1965. Lo
stesso Tolkien, il 12 settembre 1965 scrisse al suo editore inglese, Rayner
Unwin, per sottoporgli la sua contrarietà alla scelta dell’illustrazione di
copertina realizzata da Barbara Remington che mostrava in primo piano un albero
con dei bulbi rossi, 2 emù e un leone!
Tolkien si arrabbiò moltissimo per questa scelta e
nella sua lettera si chiedeva se qualcuno avesse mai letto il suo libro perché
trovava davvero fuori luogo la presenza di animali, come il leone e gli emù,
che nel suo libro non erano assolutamente presenti. Dopo le sue rimostranze,
solo il leone, nell’edizione del 1966, scomparve dalla copertina.
Questa la lettera di Tolkien pubblicata nel volume “The
Letters of J.R.R.Tolkien” a cura di Humprey Carpenter.
277 To Rayner Unwin 12 September
1965
[In August 1965 Ballantine
Books produced the first 'authorised' American paperback of The Hobbit, without
incorporating Tolkien's revisions to the text. The cover picture showed a lion,
two emus, and a tree with bulbous fruit. (When the book was reissued by
Ballantine the following February, with the revised text, the lion had
disappeared beneath yellow-green grass.)]
I
wrote to [his American publishers] expressing (with moderation) my dislike of
the cover for [the Ballantine edition of ] The Hobbit. It was a short hasty
note by hand, without a copy, but it was to this effect: I think the cover
ugly; but I recognize that a main object of a paperback cover is to attract
purchasers, and I suppose that you are better judges of what is attractive in
USA than I am. I therefore will not enter into a debate about taste – (meaning
though I did not say so: horrible colours and foul lettering) – but I must ask
this about the vignette: what has it got to do with the story? Where is this
place? Why a lion and emus? And what is the thing in the foreground with pink
bulbs? I do not understand how anybody who had read the tale (I hope you are
one) could think such a picture would please the author.
These
points have never been taken up, and are ignored in [their] latest letter.
These people seem never to read letters, or have a highly cultivated deafness
to anything but 'favorable reactions'.
Mrs.
—— [a representative of the paperback publishers] did not find time to visit
me. She rang me up. I had a longish conversation; but she seemed to me
impermeable. I should judge that all she wanted was that I should recant, be a
good boy and react favorably. When I made the above points again, her voice
rose several tones and she cried: 'But the man hadn't TIME to read the book!'
(As if that settled it. A few minutes conversation with the 'man', and a glance
at the American edition's pictures should have been sufficient.) With regard to
the pink bulbs she said as if to one of complete obtusity: 'they are meant to
suggest a Christmas Tree'. Why is such a woman let loose? I begin to feel that
I am shut up in a madhouse. Perhaps with more experience you know of some way
out of the lunatic labyrinth. I want to finish off Gawain and Pearl, and get on
with the Silmarillion and feel that I cannot deal with H[oughton] M[ifflin] or
Ballantine Books any more. Could you suggest that I am now going into purdah
(to commune with my creative soul), the veil of which only you have authority
to lift – if you think fit?
