Fifth impression, stated “second edition”. Octavo. Publisher’s green cloth, lettered and decorated blue, in the original dustwrapper after Tolkien’s own design.
 
A fine copy, very small spot to fore edge, in a very good dustwrapper, bright, but with with rubbing to the spine ends and a closed tear to the upper joint, running about halfway up the spine. Bookseller’s ticket to the recto of the rear free endpaper. 
 
The fifth impression of The Hobbit, given the moniker “Second Edition” due to Tolkien’s revisions to the text, published in an edition of 3,500 copies in July 1951.
 
These are the most marked textual revisions that Tolkien made to The Hobbit in his lifetime, reworking sections of the text so that it fit the narrative of The Lord Of The Rings, which was approaching its publication.
 
Most notably, Tolkien revised sections of Chapter V, Riddles In The Dark, and turned the magic ring that Gollum willingly bets and loses, into the One Ring which he cannot bear to be parted from. Tolkien also adds a prefatory note explaining that these changes are down to Biblo’s inaccurate recordings of the events of The Hobbit in order to conceal his own possession of the One Ring.