The Tove Jansson illustrated edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, which is only allowed by the Tolkien estate to be published in Finnish and Swedish. This is the Finnish language hardback edition. The Swedish edition is currently not in print.

During her career, Tove Jansson also illustrated books written by other prestigious authors. The two most important of these were illustrated in the 1960s; J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Tove also did illustrations for Carroll’s poem book The Hunting of the Snark.

Unique opportunities to illustrate other’s books were interesting projects for Tove Jansson and the illustrations were both stunning and personal. However, they did not receive a great reception on release, as readers already had their own imaginations about these classics from previous editions with other illustrations. That means that first editions with Tove Jansson illustrations are very rare.

Tove Jansson illustrated both the Swedish and Finnish editions of Tolkien’s classic 1937 book The Hobbit. The first edition of the Swedish Bilbo – en hobbits äventyr ('Bilbo - A Hobbit's Adventure') was published in 1962 and the second in 1994. The first Finnish translation in 1973 was named Lohikäärmevuori ('Dragon mountain') while the next two editions in 2003 and 2011 were named Hobitti eli Sinne ja takaisin ('The Hobbit or There and back again'). The first Norwegian edition was published in 1997, and is now published again since 2023.

ISBN: 978-951042792

340 pages

Hardback with dust cover

Size: 24.5 cm x 17.5 cm