Pristine first edition of The Hobbit found during home clean-out

Ms Caitlin Riley, a rare-books specialist, was flicking through photographs of tattered volumes from a routine house clean-out in Bristol in 2025 when she stopped at a familiar green cover. There, between the pictures of faded 20th-century reference books and crumbling veterinary tomes, was The Hobbit, proud and nearly pristine.

- Amelia Nierenberg

LONDON – Ms Caitlin Riley, a rare-books specialist, was flicking through photographs of tattered volumes from a routine house clean-out in Bristol in 2025 when she stopped at a familiar green cover. There, between the pictures of faded 20th-century reference books and crumbling veterinary tomes, was The Hobbit, proud and nearly pristine.

"I couldn't believe my eyes," said Ms Riley, a books and works on paper specialist at Auctioneum, an auction house in the English cities of Bath and Bristol. "How could it possibly be in and among all of this rubbish?"