First edition. Octavo. Publisher's pictorial paper covered boards, with a full-colour wraparound design illustrated by Pauline Baynes, in the original dustwrapper of the same design.
 
Illustrated by Pauline Baynes in line and with full-page illustrations in black and orange.
 
A near fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper, generally crisp but with a shallow chip to the upper panel. Contemporary ownership inscription to front free endpaper. Occasional pencil annotations throughout.
 
The final book set in Middle-Earth to be published in Tolkien's lifetime. Tom Bombadil first surfaced in a 1934 poem Tolkien published in the Oxford magazine, and in 1937 Tolkien suggested that this character could be the hero of a sequel to The Hobbit. This didn't come to fruition, but in the 1960s Tolkien's aunt Jane Neave suggested he should produce a gift book about Tom Bombadil that people could buy at Christmas presents. Tolkien and his publisher collected poems about Tom, and other poems from Middle-earth into the present volume.