THE HOBBIT or There and Back Again.

First edition with these illustrations, first printing. Original quarter leather over burgundy cloth with gilt titles to the spine and a gilt design to the upper board. Top edge burgundy. With a frontispiece and chapter heading illustrations in black and white throughout by Eric Fraser. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean and bright throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. There is a line of tiny indentations along the closed text-block fore edge. Housed in the original slipcase which is lightly toned at the extremities.

Eric Fraser first lent his bold, dramatic illustration style to Tolkien's work for the Folio Society edition of 'The Lord of the Rings' in 1977, closely followed by this edition of 'The Hobbit'. Fraser later created a colour cover illustration and accompanying vignettes for 'The Radio Times' to coincide with the broadcast of the popular 1981 BBC radio drama adaptation of 'The Lord of the Rings'.