First edition. Oblong octavo. Original pictorial boards, in pictorial dustwrapper.
 
 A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. A very slight push to spine and corner, very small chop to upper cover. Very slight toning to jacket.
 
First edition of “Tolkien’s strange comic story of a man, a motor-car, three bears, an a ‘girabbit’”.
 
Tolkien submitted the illustrated manuscript of the story to Allen & Unwin in 1936 while The Hobbit was in production, but the expense and difficulty of accurately reproducing his manuscript precluded its publication. The manuscript was part of the material sold to Marquette Univeristy in 1957, and was eventually published by Allen & Unwin nearly half a century after its original submission.
 
Publsihed in September 1982 in an edition of 50,000 copies.