The Annotated Hobbit

Rating: Rings

July 09, 2003

By JRR Tolkien; Annotated by Douglas A. Anderson

List Price: $28.00

Houghton Mifflin Co

Description (from inside flap): For readers around the globe, The Hobbit serves as an introduction to the enchanting world of Middle-earth, home of elves, wizards, dwarves, goblins, dragons, orcs, and a host of other creatures depicted in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion—tales that sprang from the mind of the most beloved author of all time, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Newly expanded and completely redesigned, Douglas A. Anderson’s The Annotated Hobbit is the definitive explication of the sources, characters, places, and things of J. R.R. Tolkien’s timeless classic. Integrated with Anderson’s notes and placed alongside the fully restored and corrected text of the original story are more than 150 illustrations showing visual interpretations of The Hobbit specific to so many of the cultures that have come to know and love Middle-earth. Tolkien’s original line drawings, maps, and color paintings are also included, making this the most lavishly informative edition of The Hobbit available.

The Annotated Hobbit shows how J.R.R. Tolkien worked as a writer, what his influences and interests were, and how these relate to the details of Middle-earth. It gives a valuable overview of Tolkien’s life and the publishing history of The Hobbit and explains how every feature of the story fits within the rest of Tolkien’s invented world. Here we learn how Gollum’s character was revised to accommodate the true nature of the One Ring, and we can read the full text of The Quest of Erebor, Gandalf’s explanation of how he came to send Bilbo Baggins on his journey with the dwarves. Anderson also makes meaningful and often surprising connections to our own world and literary history—from Beowulf to The Marvellous Land of Snergs, from the Brothers Grimm to C.S. Lewis.

About the author (from inside flap): Douglas A. Anderson is a renowned Tolkien scholar whos expertise in the complicated textual history and evolution of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings has led to the inclusion of his essays on these topics in most editions of those works published in English since 1987. He collaborated with Wayne G. Hammond on J.R.R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography. With an expertise in the history of fantasy literature, he was instrumental in reintroducing the world to E. A. Wyke-Smith’s The Marvellous Land of Snergs, a children’s fantasy that Tolkien cited as an influence on The Hobbit, and to such neglected writerse as Kenneth Morris, Clemence Housman, and Leonard Cline. Anderson lives in southwestern Michigan.

Quote: (Note 25, page 128) “The first edition of The Hobbit (1937) contains a significantly different version of [the ‘Riddles in the Dark’] chapter. As Tolkien wrote the sequel, The Lord of the Rings, he found it necessary to revise The Hobbit in order to bring it into line with the sequel. The portrayal of Gollum has been substantially altered; in the first edition, he is not nearly as wretched a creature. And the stakes of the riddle contest are slightly different: It was still Bilbo’s life if he lost, but if he won, Gollum would give him a present. The riddle contest is pretty much the same in both versions, but the conclusion in the earlier version is about half as long as that in later editions. The ending of the early version is given in here and in note 32 to this chapter.”

Review by Cleolinda:

Douglas Anderson’s marvelous The Annotated Hobbit will appeal to a lot of readers for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the book is a broad, relatively thin hardback (very easy to keep open when curled up on a long Sunday afternoon), attractively bound, beautifully illustrated, and easy on the eyes. If nothing else, the book is the definitive version of J.R.R. Tolkien’s introduction to Middle Earth, whether you choose to read the annotations or not; the typeface is large enough that the book could as easily be a child’s first meeting with Tolkien as a fan’s rediscovery of an old favorite.

And you will never quite look at The Hobbit the same way after reading this edition. The annotations take up two-inch columns on the outer sides of the pages, leaving the primary text in the middle, and Anderson leaves very little space blank. His asides range from simple line changes that Tolkien made (“It was of silvered steel and ornamented with pearls” becomes “It was of silver-steel, which the elves call mithril” more than twenty-five years later) to the complex Anglo-Saxon etymologies of basic names like Arkenstone and, leaping forward to Lord of the Rings, Théoden; in between, Anderson glosses allusions Tolkien makes to other characters in a saga he had not yet even fully put to paper, images and excerpts from texts that inspired Tolkien, changes Tolkien made to bring The Hobbit more in line with Lord of the Rings, and even a few things he left at odds with his epic. One of the best features of The Annotated Hobbit, however, is the wealth of illustrations the book includes, forgoing all but a sprinkle of works by favorites like Howe, Lee, and Nasmith in favor of Tolkien’s own paintings and sketches, plus lesser-known illustrations from artists as far-flung as Romania, France, Estonia, Germany, Slovakia, Russian, Sweden, and Japan. The book is topped off with the complete text of “The Quest of Erebor,” an alternate text where Gandalf explains how he came to draw Bilbo into the journey in the first place. The overall impression is that of a story that’s lighter and more whimsical than its grand descendant, but yet much more deeply and richly imagined than Tolkien’s readers may have guessed. The text itself is the tip of the iceberg; Anderson’s scholarship reveals the enormity of Tolkien’s inspiration and care beneath the surface of the waters.

Comments:

gimmie gimmie me wantee review and maps on middle earth and its inhabitants

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Posted by: marian at March 24, 2004 01:03 PM

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Posted by: marian at March 24, 2004 01:03 PM

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