First edition in Swedish, the first published translation of The Hobbit. Octavo. Publisher’s original pictorial boards, with a red cloth spine lettered and decorated gilt. A very good copy indeed. Spine gilt slightly dulled, and some light wear to the edges.
 
The first translation of The Hobbit into any language.
 
The translation infuriated Tolkien, who was not consulted on it in advance. The attempt to translate words unique to his world, like ‘Hobbit’, into Swedish were so grating that they came bubbling up a decade later in a letter to Rayner Unwin about an upcoming Dutch translation:
 
“I will not tolerate any similar tinkering with the personal nomenclature. Nor with the name/word Hobbit. I will not have any more Hompen (in which I was not consulted), nor any Hobbel or what not... Hobbit (and orc) are of that world, and they must stay”.
 
The present book also throws up the first misinterpretation of the creature Gollum (one to later be repeated by Tove Jansson). Described in the original text of the first edition as “dark as darkness except for two big round pale eyes”, he is here depicted as a giant black monster, four times as tall and wide as Bilbo.