A first edition of “The Hobbit” accompanied by a handwritten note in Elvish by British author J.R.R. Tolkien was sold by Sotheby’s at auction on Thursday for £137,000 (187,000 euros, $211,000).
The book was a gift from the author and is dedicated to Miss Katherine (“Kitty”) Kilbride, one of his first students at Leeds University in the 1920s.
The lines in Elvish — a language invented by Tolkien — are extracts from a verse in “The Lost Road”, a time-travel tale that Tolkien never completed.
The book dates from 1937 and the price it fetched beat the previous auction record for “The Hobbit” of £50,000 in 2008, Sotheby’s said in a statement.
Watch: Alex welcomes J. R. R. Tolkien expert John Di Bartolo to share a lost audio recording of the Lord of the Rings author speaking out against government oppression and tyranny:
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