THE LORD OF THE RINGS - COPY OF JRR TOLKIEN'S HOBBIT SELLS FOR £60,000 AT AUCTION

COPY OF JRR TOLKIEN'S HOBBIT SELLS FOR £60,000 AT AUCTION

A first edition copy of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit has sold at auction for £60,000, with an anonymous bidder winning the valuable tome.

The signed copy of the 1937 edition of the book - part of the original first run of 1,500 copies - sold for more than twice its expected price at Bonham's auction house in London.

The copy is inscribed to Tolkien's friend Elaine Griffiths, who played an instrumental role in helping the author securing a publishing deal for the novel.

While the Oxford professor had originally seen the tale of Bilbo Baggins journey through Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain as a story suitable for his children, Griffiths recommended the book to publishers George Allen and Unwin.

The Bonham's auction also included the first foreign language edition of The Hobbit, a Swedish translation from 1947, which fetched £1,560, far more than its predicted value of £400 to £800.

And the last known photograph of the author, which shows him leaning against the Black Pine - his favourite tree in the Oxford Botanical Gardens which he nicknamed Laocoon - was also part of the Bonham's lot.

It was a gift to Griffiths from Tolkien's daughter Priscilla, who signed it: "For Elaine with love from Priscilla."

The Hobbit or There and Back Again - as it is subtitled - was Tolkien's most successful book, selling over 100 million copies and serving as a prequel of sorts to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

After a lengthy legal dispute between Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and New Line studios, plans for two Hobbit films based on the Tolkien book are now in motion, with shooting expected to begin in 2009.

Guillermo del Toro, director of Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth, is currently the favourite to direct the movies, with Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh to produce.