This is such a fun story that I never tire of rereading! The annotated edition has great background info about the text and the writing of the story and illustrations from different editions of The Hobbit. =) ( )

I'm less interested in the notes than in the illustrations, which are from many different editions and translations.

Si uno se contextualiza con el fin del libro "una historia escrita para sus hijos" y justamente ese echo de que es un libro para niños, esta aventura crece en la consideración, seria una de las mejores jamas escritas aunque si tienen que tener algunos conceptos ya claros los infantes.
En lo particular peco de haber visto todas las películas eso quizás me da unos sabores en el paladar que no puedo sacarme siendo todos ellos positivos. Noto la solidez y lo fluido del relato, sin volverse denso, siempre intrigante, avanzando en cada paso, mostrando la complejidad de las creaciones en las que pensó toda su vida Tolkien y que dio un impulso enérgico a la fantasía en general.
La edicion que toque tiene ademas el plus de explicar el proceso creativo, anotaciones al pie que dan mas significados a lo que ocurre, la historia de lo dibujos de varias ediciones internacionales y tambien un anexo con la historia de como Gandalf planeo todo lo que pasa en este libro.
Todo aquello suma mucho y hace que la lectura sea mas objetiva.
( )

An excellent version for those Hobbit fans wishing to RE-read the book. I wouldn't recommend this edition to first-timers, simply because it may take away from the wonder of reading "The Hobbit" in its unspoiled splendor. However, I did find the annotations fascinating and hence why I think anyone looking to re-read the novel will benefit from it more. ( )

What Tolkien had described [in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings] is the scenario for the first edition of The Hobbit; and the statement that "this is not the story as Bilbo first told it to his companions" contradicts the statement given here, that Bilbo "sat down and told them everything, except about the finding of the ring," and the statement given later (in the spiders episode), that the dwarves, after hearing about the ring, insist on "having the Gollum story, riddles and all, told over again, with the ring in its proper place." Bilbo's dishonesty, of great importance in The Lord of the Rings, is nowhere explicitly present in The Hobbit.

On picking this up, I did not think The Hobbit particularly needed annotating; it is not a story of riddles and layers (as with [b:The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition|176972|The Annotated Alice The Definitive Edition|Lewis Carroll|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1367782378s/176972.jpg|15777985]); its antecedents are clear and its making well known. Having now read this, I am pleased to report I was wrong. The documentation of Tolkien's changes to the "Riddles in the Dark" chapter alone are worth the book, showing as they do the evolution of the story as Tolkien (inadvertently, as it turns out) retconned the story of the ring back into his earlier tale. The illustrations of different editions from around the world and the inclusion of snippets of Tolkien's sources are very nice as well. Worth a read for any fan of Middle Earth.

As to the primary text itself? This is the first time I have actually reread The Hobbit since I was a kid, I think, although I have reread The Lord of the Rings a number of times. I am pleased to say it holds up; Gollum and the spiders and Smaug and Beorn and Bard and all of it. I get the same chills now as I always have when the cry goes up that the Eagles are coming. I know it is not fashionable, among the seriously literary lovers of fantasy, to love Tolkien unironically. But I do. All I can say is that if any of the naysayers who want to call him a wart on a horse's butt (or a wanna-be fascist or whatever the going thing is) ever write anything as good as this little tale of an Everyman, I will read it and love it, too.