Updating The Hobbit Base Text

by James Tauber and Jennie King  •  7 October 2026

As we begin to publish stand-off annotations, it becomes even more important to have a well-curated digital text for each work. Recently, we’ve revisited the text of The Hobbit.

We first compared five distinct, legally purchased e-books with each other and with our existing base text. For each discrepancy, we checked the following UK print books, identified by their Tolkien Books impression-group IDs:

• 1966 paperback — Z96J (15th impression)
• 2006 A-Format paperback — SBG7 (145th impression)
• 2011 B-Format paperback — AEKV (90th impression)
• 2012 Collector’s Edition — FRM8 (20th impression)
• 2017 Children’s Edition — X7EW (49th impression)
• 2023 Illustrated by the Author edition — TQ2R (3rd impression)

The First Edition Facsimile (Q2E2) was also consulted.

This article is not a collection of all the errors in the e-books. Rather, it discusses those differences across e-books that warranted further investigation of UK print books to establish what our digital edition should read.

We did not consider variations in italics here, but we did investigate capitalization and punctuation differences. We did not look at spacing between paragraphs.

The ambiguity of a hyphen at the end of a line

Many of the differences concern hyphenation in places where, in the 2006 A-Format paperback, the hyphen falls at the end of a line. That position leaves it unclear whether the hyphen belongs to the word or merely divides it across lines, in other words: whether it is a hard or soft hyphen. The distinction matters when producing a digital text in which line endings are no longer fixed.

This ambiguity appears to account for the differences discussed in issues 2, 5, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 24. Issues 19 and 25 also involve ambiguous line-end hyphens in other print books.

Issue 1 — The position of the map

At 01.105, both variants are legitimate because they depend on where the map has been placed in the book:

(Look at the map in this chapter, and you will see there the runes in red.)

(Look at the map at the beginning of this book, and you will see there the runes.)

We are working on a way to support both variants in our digital edition.

Issue 2 — ‘grandfather’

In the existing base text, ‘grandfather’ occurs thirteen times (including in the plural) and ‘grand-father’ once, at 01.125. In several print books—the 2006 A-Format, 2011 B-Format, 2012 Collector’s, and 2023 Illustrated by the Author editions—the hyphen at this location is an ambiguous line-end hyphen.

Our new base text will use ‘grandfather’.

Issue 3 — en-dash and em-dash

At 01.128, our existing base text has an en-dash (‘–’, U+2013) after ‘since’. Four of the five e-books have an em-dash (‘—’, U+2014) instead as do all UK print books checked.

Our new base text will use an em-dash.

Issue 4 — dittograph

At 02.028, the 2006 A-Format and some e-books have a dittograph:

Mostly it had been as good as May can be, can be

The repeated ‘can be’ will be removed in our new base text.

Issue 5 — ‘key-hole’ and ‘keyhole’

Going back to the first edition, there has been an inconsistency in whether ‘key-hole(s)’ has a hyphen.

There is a hyphen at 02.113, 03.028, 03.044, and 11.014, but no hyphen at 09.014 or 12.099.

In the 2006 A-Format paperback, the hyphen at 02.113 falls at the end of a line. This appears to have led to the 2017 Children’s edition and numerous e-books dropping it.

We will retain the original variation.

Issue 6 — Over Hill and Under Hill

The existing base text gives the chapter title at 04.000 as ‘Over Hill and under Hill’. The 2006 A-Format, 2011 B-Format, 2012 Collector’s, 2017 Children’s, and 2023 Illustrated by the Author editions capitalize ‘Under’, as do some e-books. The first edition also capitalizes it.

We will update our base text to ‘Under’.

Issue 7 — Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire

The existing base text gives the title at 06.000 as ‘Out of the Frying-Pan into the Fire’. One e-book has ‘Into’, but none of the UK print books we checked do, so we will retain ‘into’.

Issue 8 — ‘midsummer-eve’

Our base text has ‘midsummereve’ at 06.030, but only one e-book has that form: the very one on which the original digital text was based. Every other e-book and print book checked has ‘midsummer-eve’, so we will update our base text to that hyphenation.

Issue 9 — ‘battle-ground’

The majority of e-books checked have ‘battleground’ at 06.084, but the 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here. All other UK print books checked hyphenate the word, as does our original base text.

Issue 10 — capitalization and small caps

In our existing base text, 07.022 reads:

“Good gracious heavens, no, no, no, NO!” said Gandalf.

The UK print books checked differ in their treatment of the third ‘no’: all except the 2006 A-Format use small caps, while the 2006 A-Format and many e-books use capitals. In keeping with stand-off annotation of font variants, we will keep the base-text reading lowercase.

Issue 11 — ellipses

At 07.047, 07.057, 07.065, and 07.084, we will not space the ellipses as they are spaced in, for example, the 1966 paperback or many e-books.

Our new base text will use the Unicode ellipsis character (‘…’, U+2026) instead of three separate full stops (‘...’). At 07.084, the four-dot sequence (‘....’) will become a full stop followed by an ellipsis (‘.…’), preserving the sentence-ending full stop.

Issue 12 — ‘good-bye’

Our existing base text always uses ‘good-bye’ (13 times) rather than ‘goodbye’. This follows all the UK print books we checked. Many e-books drop the hyphen at 07.147, but we will retain it.

Issue 13 — ‘grown-up’

Our base text will retain ‘grown-up’ at 08.092. All UK print books we checked have this form except the 2017 Children’s edition, which has ‘grown up’ as two separate words. The 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here and, likely as a result, many e-books have ‘grownup’.

Issue 14 — ‘kindheartedly’

Our base text will retain ‘kindheartedly’ at 09.035. All UK print books we checked have this form except the 2017 Children’s edition, which has ‘kind-heartedly’. The 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here and, likely as a result, many e-books have ‘kind-heartedly’.

Issue 15 — ‘trapdoor(s)’

The form ‘trapdoor(s)’ occurs six times, always without a hyphen in the UK print books. The 2006 A-Format has ambiguous line-end hyphens at 09.051 and 09.055 and, likely as a result, many e-books have ‘trap-door(s)’. Our base text will retain ‘trapdoor(s)’.

Issue 16 — ‘look-out’

Our base text will retain ‘look-out’ at 12.005. All UK print books we checked have this form. The 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here and, likely as a result, many e-books have ‘lookout’. The first edition has ‘look-out’.

Issue 17 — ‘bottommost’

Our base text will retain ‘bottommost’ at 12.012. The 2017 Children’s edition and the 1966 paperback have ‘bottom-most’. The 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here, and many e-books have ‘bottom-most’. The first edition has ‘bottommost’.

Issue 18 — ‘to-day’ and ‘today’

Our base text has both ‘to-day’, at 12.038 and 13.068, and ‘today’ elsewhere, as do the first edition and many of the UK print books we checked. The 2017 Children’s edition, the 1966 paperback, and a number of e-books normalize all occurrences to ‘today’. We will retain the variation.

Notably, the two instances of ‘to-day’ are spoken by Thorin, whereas none of the instances of ‘today’ are. Those are instead spoken by Bilbo, Bert, Gandalf, Bombur, or Smaug.

Issue 19 — ‘nowhere’

The first edition has ‘nowhere’ at 04.001 and an ambiguous line-end hyphen at 12.075. The 2006 A-Format has ‘no-where’ at 12.075, as did our base text. We will correct it to ‘nowhere’, following all other UK print books we checked.

Issue 20 — ‘lightfooted’

Our base text will retain ‘lightfooted’ at 14.042, without a hyphen. The 2017 Children’s edition and many e-books have ‘light-footed’. The 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here.

Issue 21 — hyphen and em-dash

The old base text has ‘dragon-in which he was much mistaken—and’ at 15.024. The hyphen-minus (‘-’, U+002D) after ‘dragon’ should be an em-dash (‘—’, U+2014), paired with the em-dash after ‘mistaken’.

We will correct it to ‘dragon—in which he was much mistaken—and’.

Issue 22 — the footnote

17.041-fn reads ‘Son of Azog. See p.NNN’ where NNN varies by setting.

We will change our base text to just read ‘Son of Azog. See p.’ so analytics and search will work on everything but the actual page number.

Issue 23 — ‘Elvenking’

Our base text will retain ‘Elvenking’ at 17.045. The 2006 A-Format has ‘Elven-king’, as do many e-books. Those books have the hyphen in that one paragraph but not in the other twenty-two occurrences.

The first edition always spells it ‘Elvenking’, although two occurrences are divided by line-end hyphens.

Issue 24 — ‘mid-winter’

Our base text will retain ‘mid-winter’ at 18.051. The 2017 Children’s edition and many e-books have ‘midwinter’. The 2006 A-Format has an ambiguous line-end hyphen here.

Issue 25 — ‘arm-chair’

Our base text will retain ‘arm-chair’ at 18.054. The 2017 Children’s edition and many e-books have ‘armchair’. The 2006 A-Format has ‘arm-chair’ in the middle of a line, but the 2011 B-Format, 2012 Collector’s, and 2023 Illustrated by the Author editions all have an ambiguous line-end hyphen.

Summary of changes to the base text

The proposed changes recorded in these notes are:

Over time, these updates will be reflected in Search Tolkien, Cite Tolkien, and the Tolkien Glossary.