THE HOBBIT, Or There and Back Again.

First edition, first printing of the Alan Lee illustrated edition. Publisher's original green cloth with gilt titles to the spine and dragon illustration to the upper board, in the illustrated dustwrapper. Illustrated throughout with 26 colour plates and various in text pencil drawings by Alan Lee. A fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the very lightly creased dustwrapper, that has a faint indented line above the barcode on the rear panel and is free from fading, loss or tears. Not price-clipped.

Alan Lee is one of the most celebrated living illustrators of myth and fantasy: a recipient of the Kate Greenaway Medal and an Academy Award for Art Direction for Peter Jackson's films of The Lord of the Rings. For this edition of The Hobbit he won the 1998 Chesley Award for Best Interior Illustration. Released on the 60th Anniversary of The Hobbit's first publication. Outside of the author's own, Alan Lee's illustrations have become the most admired and recognisable renderings of Middle-earth and its inhabitants.