Not very many copies of The Hobbit

[geoffrey]

Wow. Fewer than 12,500 copies of The Hobbit were printed in England between 1937 and 1950. That's not very many copies. That's a sale of about two and a half copies per day.

link: www.tolkienbooks.net/php/earlyhobbits.php

[Stormcrow]

Wartime paper shortages were a big factor of that.

[geoffrey]

Feb 24, 2015 13:33:25 GMT -6 Stormcrow said:

Wartime paper shortages were a big factor of that.

Ah, that makes sense. I remember reading C. S. Lewis's collected letters (3 fat volumes), and he often remarked upon paper shortages.

[geoffrey]

Half-a-dozen facts:

1. The Hobbit was first published in the U. S. in late Feb. 1938. By the end of 1938 it had sold more than 5,000 copies.

2. Paper rationing began in England in April 1940 and ended in 1949.

3. Allen & Unwin's warehouse in north London was bombed in 1940, and more than a million books were lost. Whoa.

4. The Hobbit was unavailable in England for long stretches in the 1940s.

5. A reviewer (Marcus S. Crouch) wrote in 1950: "The Hobbit had a mixed reception, as of most books of marked originality. It has been, I believe, no more than a moderate success in the bookshops, and librarians who have had the courage to buy it in suitable quantities cannot claim that it rivals the popularity of current mass-produced goods."

6. Sales of The Hobbit picked-up dramatically after the publication of The Lord of the Rings.


Thus, for the first 15 or so years of its existence, The Hobbit was not a very popular book. It wasn't a Harry Potter or a Twilight. It was one of those books you see on a bookstore shelf that you've never heard of, written by someone you've also never heard of. The Hobbit began to be read avidly precisely as a prelude to The Lord of the Rings. No wonder The Lord of the Rings has sold more copies than has The Hobbit. There must be quite a number of people who have read The Lord of the Rings without reading The Hobbit. Perhaps these people have little interest in a children's story, but like the more adult-oriented The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps they feel that the four-page summary of The Hobbit in the prologue of The Lord of the Rings is all they desire to know about The Hobbit.

[Falconer]

Hmm, maybe, but would you agree with this further narrative?

1. Explosion of popularity of the LR in the 60s and 70s among young adults and adults (to some degree related to the hippie movement). Among these, Hob is considered optional. It is, after all, a children’s book.

2. However, that generation begets said children…

3. Children born in the 70s and 80s read (or have read aloud to them) Hob, plus perhaps FR as far as Tom Bombadil.

4. They grow up and may or may not ever read the full LR books their parents’ generation so prized.


I know that was my experience. Hob blew my mind as a young child, when my father read it aloud to my brother and me. I desperately wanted more, but the LR really went over my head after the first eight chapters (and Chapter II, “The Shadow of the Past,” should probably have been skipped, as well). My whole life (prior to the movies), it seemed to me that my contemporaries all knew Hob, but the LR either drew blank stares (at least until I prompted, “You know, The Hobbit? Tom Bombadil?), or scorn (as hardcore geekery).

[geoffrey]

Yeah, my experience is similar to yours:

1. At age 11 in the spring of my 6th-grade year, I would hurry home to read The Hobbit. It was glorious. My parents didn't get home for about 90 minutes after I arrived. I would make myself cinnamon toast, lie on the couch, and read about a chapter each day. I thoroughly loved it.

2. Later that year (late summer, perhaps?) my mother traded one of my old toys for a boxed set of Tolkien's four volumes. I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring and got to Bree before giving it up as a bad job. One of my mistakes was not distinguishing between Sauron and Saruman. I was quite confused.

3. At age 12 in the spring of my 7th-grade year, I made another go at it. This time I made it through the entire The Lord of the Rings. I remember doing most of my reading of it during study hall. How my study hall teacher (named Mrs. Craver) must have loved those books! They kept me quiet and out of mischief for months. I remember while reading "The Scouring of the Shire" she asked me, "Geof, what are those books you've been reading for so long?"

[Deleted]

Mar 1, 2015 22:36:29 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Half-a-dozen facts:

1. The Hobbit was first published in the U. S. in late Feb. 1938. By the end of 1938 it had sold more than 5,000 copies.

2. Paper rationing began in England in April 1940 and ended in 1949.

3. Allen & Unwin's warehouse in north London was bombed in 1940, and more than a million books were lost. Whoa.

4. The Hobbit was unavailable in England for long stretches in the 1940s.

5. A reviewer (Marcus S. Crouch) wrote in 1950: "The Hobbit had a mixed reception, as of most books of marked originality. It has been, I believe, no more than a moderate success in the bookshops, and librarians who have had the courage to buy it in suitable quantities cannot claim that it rivals the popularity of current mass-produced goods."

6. Sales of The Hobbit picked-up dramatically after the publication of The Lord of the Rings.


Thus, for the first 15 or so years of its existence, The Hobbit was not a very popular book. It wasn't a Harry Potter or a Twilight. It was one of those books you see on a bookstore shelf that you've never heard of, written by someone you've also never heard of. The Hobbit began to be read avidly precisely as a prelude to The Lord of the Rings. No wonder The Lord of the Rings has sold more copies than has The Hobbit. There must be quite a number of people who have read The Lord of the Rings without reading The Hobbit. Perhaps these people have little interest in a children's story, but like the more adult-oriented The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps they feel that the four-page summary of The Hobbit in the prologue of The Lord of the Rings is all they desire to know about The Hobbit.

You might have fun researching Dick Plotz, or Ploetz, and the "Tolkien Society of America". (Not to be confused with the modern "American Tolkien Society".)

That org did conventions and meetups since as early as 1962, IIRC.

IF there was any substantial fandom for the Hobbit before the publication of LotR, these guys would know.