Lot 236•
TOLKIEN (J.R.R.) The Hobbit or There and Back Again, FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY, George Allen and Unwin, 1937
7 – 20 June 2024, 12:00 BST
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TOLKIEN (J.R.R.)
The Hobbit or There and Back Again, FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION, AUTHOR'S PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed on half-title "Margaret [Wiseman] from Ronald/ J.R.R. Tolkien 1937", frontispiece, one plate and 8 illustrations (all but one full-page), advertisement leaf at end, publisher's green cloth, soiled and worn with remnants of old leather reinforcements at corners, lower edges and on spine (this lacking the lower half of the backstrip, lettering 'The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien' still visible), hinges reinforced with parcel tape affecting map endpapers, bookplate and ink and pencil shelf numbers on front endpapers, shelf numbers repeated on flyleaf with 'Oulton Abbey School' in pencil, 8vo, George Allen and Unwin, 1937
Footnotes
PRESENTATION COPY OF 'THE HOBBIT' FROM TOLKIEN TO CHRISTOPHER WISEMAN'S SISTER MARGARET, A BENEDICTINE NUN AT OULTON ABBEY - WITH HIS RARER FORM OF SIGNATURE AS "RONALD TOLKIEN".
Little seems to be known of Margaret Wiseman, the sister of Tolkien's friend Christopher Wiseman, but she clearly exerted some influence over the author, who favoured her with presentation copies of his books over a long period, all signed with his rarer "Ronald Tolkien" signature, reserved for close friends (see following lots).
Tolkien had met Christopher Wiseman at school: "The youthful Tolkien belonged to a group known as the TCBS, initials that stand for Tea Club, Barrovian Society. This club, composed of students from King Edward's School, the exclusive public school that Tolkien attended, used to meet in the Tea Room of Barrows Store in Birmingham. Eventually the club centered on four major members, each of whom brought a specialization: Christopher Wiseman, the expert on music and natural sciences... Tolkien, called John Ronald, versed in Germanic languages and philology. Tolkien was the only Catholic in the group, but all four young men hoped to contribute to a moral and cultural renewal in England... By the war's end, only Tolkien and Christopher Wiseman remained alive. Wiseman wrote to his friend, "You ought to start the epic"; but for the most part, he does not play a significant role in Tolkien's literary career. Ironically, his sister Margaret does; she became a Catholic and a Benedictine nun, Mother Mary St. John, at Oulton Abbey from where she encouraged him with her prayers" (John Kezel, 'Priests, Prophets, and Kings: Ecclesiology in Newman and Tolkien', International Centre of Newman Friends website, May 2011).
St Mary's Abbey, or Oulton Abbey, was the home of Benedictine Nuns who came to Oulton from Ghent in 1853, and who commissioned Pugin to adapt the existing house and design the church. In the twentieth century a small boarding school was incorporated into the Abbey, in whose library it seems Margaret deposited the Tolkien books. The Abbey is now transitioning into a care home.
Provenance: Margaret Wiseman, inscription from Tolkien dated 1937; Oulton Abbey, bookplate.