The definitive edition of this beloved children's classic, featuring a wealth of accompanying illustrations and notes which take the reader further into both the story, and the tale of how it was written. Seldom has any book been so widely read and loved as J.R.R. Tolkien's classic tale, The Hobbit. Since its first publication in 1937 it has remained in print to delight each new generation of readers all over the world, and its hero, Bilbo Baggins, has taken his place among the ranks of the immortals: Alice, Pooh, Toad...As with all classics, repeated readings continue to bring new detail and perspectives to the reader's mind, and Tolkien's Middle-earth is a vast mine of treasures and knowledge, its roots delving deep into folklore, mythology and language. The Hobbit is, therefore, an ideal book for annotation: as well as offering a marvellous and entrancing story, it introduces the reader to the richly imagined world of Middle-earth, a world more fully and complexly realised in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion. Douglas Anderson's annotations make fascinating reading. Additionally, many of Tolkien's own illustrations embellish the text, and numerous illustrations from foreign editions exhibit an extraordinary range of visual interpretation. In an appendix there are details of the revisions made by Tolkien at various times to the publsihed text, which provide an uncommon and privileged glimpse into the special concerns of an exceptional and painstaking writer.

作者简介

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) is the creator of Middle-earth and author of such classic and extraordinary works of fiction as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. His books have been translated into more than fifty languages and have sold many millions of copies worldwide.

　　约翰·罗纳德·瑞尔·托尔金（J.R.R. Tolkien）（1892-1973），英国文豪，天才的语言学家，牛津大学默顿学院英国语言与文学教授，1919—1920年牛津英语词典（OED）的编委。他以瑰丽的想像和精深的语言，建立了一个英语世界的全新神话体系。托尔金的雄心壮志不在于写作一个传奇故事，或一部史诗。在他所创作的一系列中洲史诗中，影响最为深远的是《霍比特人》（The Hobbit： There and Back Again）和《魔戒》（The Lord of the Rings）。这两部巨作被誉为当代奇幻作品的鼻祖，至今已畅销2.5亿余册，被翻译成60余种语言。美国每年销售的大约一亿本平装书中，就有四分之一可以追溯到托尔金的作品。《魔戒》被票选为“两千年以来最重要的书”。由托尔金小说改编的电影《指环王》、《霍比特人》掀起21世纪奇幻文艺的全面复兴，世界拜倒在他脚下。

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精彩书评

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort." The hobbit-hole in question belongs to one Bilbo Baggins, an upstanding member of a "little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded dwarves." He is, like most of his kind, well off, well fed, and best pleased when sitting by his own fire with a pipe, a glass of good beer, and a meal to look forward to. Certainly this particular hobbit is the last person one would expect to see set off on a hazardous journey; indeed, when Gandalf the Grey stops by one morning, "looking for someone to share in an adventure," Baggins fervently wishes the wizard elsewhere. No such luck, however; soon 13 fortune-seeking dwarves have arrived on the hobbit's doorstep in search of a burglar, and before he can even grab his hat or an umbrella, Bilbo Baggins is swept out his door and into a dangerous adventure. The dwarves' goal is to return to their ancestral home in the Lonely Mountains and reclaim a stolen fortune from the dragon Smaug. Along the way, they and their reluctant companion meet giant spiders, hostile elves, ravening wolves--and, most perilous of all, a subterranean creature named Gollum from whom Bilbo wins a magical ring in a riddling contest. It is from this life-or-death game in the dark that J.R.R. Tolkien's masterwork, The Lord of the Rings, would eventually spring. Though The Hobbit is lighter in tone than the trilogy that follows, it has, like Bilbo Baggins himself, unexpected iron at its core. Don't be fooled by its fairy-tale demeanor; this is very much a story for adults, though older children will enjoy it, too. By the time Bilbo returns to his comfortable hobbit-hole, he is a different person altogether, well primed for the bigger adventures to come--and so is the reader.
--Alix Wilber

‘One of the best loved characters in English fiction… a marvellous fantasy adventure.’
--Daily Mail