RARE 'HOBBIT' FIRST EDITION AUCTIONED FOR $57,000

A rare first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” recently sold for $57,000 at auction, after it was found during a house clearance in southwest England.

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Purchased by a private collector in the United Kingdom, the book is one of 1,500 original copies of the British author’s seminal fantasy novel that were published in 1937.

Of those, only “a few hundred are believed to still remain”, according to the auction house Auctioneum, which discovered the book on an bookcase at a home in Bristol.

Bidders from around the world drove the price up by more than four times what the auction house expected for the manuscript.

"It’s a wonderful result, for a very special book,” said Auctioneum rare books specialist Caitlin Riley.