George R.R. Martin, whose “A Song of Ice and Fire” book series is the basis for the hit HBO show Game of Thrones, has donated a rare first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937) to Texas A & M University.
Martin, whose archive is housed at Texas A&M, became enamored with the University and especially with the Cushing Memorial Library and Archives’ Science Fiction and Fantasy Research Collection during the 1970s while visiting for the AggieCon science fiction conventions.
The cause for celebration? It is the five millionth volume acquired by the university!
It will take it’s place alongside a first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass (1855), the three millionth volume donated, and Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote de la Mancha, parts I and II (1617), the earliest complete Quixote edition still obtainable and the four millionth volume donated.
On the significance of the donation Martin says “It represents an acceptance of fantasy into the canon of world literature which I think is long overdue, frankly.”
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Texas A&M Libraries Receives Five Millionth Volume, A First-Edition Of The Hobbit | Texas A&M Today
Collectible copies | ABE
Filmed version | Amazon