Rare 1937 ‘Hobbit’ Discovered In House Clearance Sells For $57,000

Published

3 weeks ago

August 7, 2025

A rare first-edition copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” sold for 43,000 pounds ($57,000) at auction on Wednesday, after it was found during a house clearance in South-West England.

Purchased by a private collector in the United Kingdom, the book is one of 1,500 original copies of the British author’s seminal fantasy novel that were published in 1937.

Of those, only “a few hundred are believed to still remain”, according to the auction house Auctioneum, which discovered the book on a bookcase at a home in Bristol.

Bidders from around the world drove the price up by more than four times what the auction house expected for the manuscript.

“It’s a wonderful result for a very special book,” said Auctioneum rare books specialist Caitlin Riley.

“The surviving books from the initial print run are now considered some of the most sought-after books in modern literature,” Auctioneum said in a statement.

Auctioneum unearthed the book during a routine house clearance after its owner passed away.

“Nobody knew it was there,” Riley said. “It was just a run-of-the-mill bookcase.”

“It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition,” she said.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she added, calling it an “unimaginably rare find”.

The copy is bound in light green cloth and features rare black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien, who created his beloved Middle-earth universe while he was a professor at the University of Oxford.

The book was passed down in the family library of Hubert Priestley, a botanist connected to the university.

“It is likely that both men knew each other,” according to Auctioneum, which said Priestley and Tolkien shared mutual correspondence with author C.S. Lewis, who was also at Oxford.

“The Hobbit”, which was followed by the epic series “The Lord of the Rings”, has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

The sagas were turned into a hit movie franchise in the 2000s.

A first edition of “The Hobbit” with a handwritten note in Elvish by the author sold for £137,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2015.

AFP

NGO Says Starving Gaza Children Too Weak To Cry

Published

3 hours ago

August 27, 2025

Editor

The head of Save the Children described in horrific detail on Wednesday the slow agony of starving children in Gaza, saying they are so weak they do not even cry.

Addressing a Security Council meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the president of the international charity, Inger Ashing, said famine — declared by the UN last week to be happening in Gaza — is not just a dry technical term.

“When there is not enough food, children become acutely malnourished, and then they die slowly and painfully. This, in simple terms, is what famine is,” said Ashing.

She went on to describe what happens when children die of hunger over the course of several weeks, as the body first consumes its own fat to survive, and when that is gone, literally consumes itself as it eats muscles and vital organs.

“Yet our clinics are almost silent. Now, children do not have the strength to speak or even cry out in agony. They lie there, emaciated, quite literally wasting away,” said Ashing.

She insisted that aid groups have been warning loudly that famine was coming as Israel prevented food and other essentials from entering Gaza over the course of two years of war triggered by the Hamas attack of October 2023.

“Everyone in this room has a legal and moral responsibility to act to stop this atrocity,” said Ashing.

The United Nations officially declared famine in Gaza on Friday, blaming what it called the systematic obstruction of aid by Israel during more than 22 months of war.

A UN-backed hunger monitor called the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Initiative said famine was affecting 500,000 people in the Gaza governorate, which covers about a fifth of the Palestinian territory, including Gaza City.

The IPC projected that the famine would expand by the end of September to cover around two-thirds of Gaza.
AFP

Headline

Again, Russia Claims Another Village In Ukraine’s Region

Published

2 days ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

The Russian army Monday claimed to have captured another village in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, moving deeper into Ukrainian territory as peace efforts stall.

Russian forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground in costly battles for largely devastated areas in eastern and central Ukraine, normally with few inhabitants or intact buildings left.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had seized the settlement of Zaporizke in the region, which Russian troops recently advanced into for the first time in the three-and-a-half-year offensive.

Kyiv denies that Russian troops have gained a foothold in the Dnipropetrovsk region, an important industrial hub.

After another push by US President Donald Trump to broker a Ukraine-Russia summit, hopes for peace dimmed when Russia last week ruled out any immediate meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.

The central region of Dnipropetrovsk has previously been largely spared from fighting that has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, until Russia said its forces broke through in July.

Dnipropetrovsk is not one of the five Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Crimea — that Moscow has publicly claimed as Russian territory.

Ukraine said Russia had launched over 100 drones Monday, killing a 37-year old civilian driver and wounding two people in the northeastern Sumy region.

Moscow said Kyiv had launched about two dozen drones targeting western Russia

Headline

US Comedian Reggie Carroll Shot Dead In Mississippi

Published

2 days ago

August 25, 2025

Editor

A United States comedian, Reginald “Reggie” Carroll, has been shot dead in Southaven, Mississippi.

The 52-year-old Carroll, widely known as the Knockout King of Comedy, was reportedly killed on Wednesday, August 20, 2025, after sustaining multiple gunshot wounds.

The Southaven Police Department confirmed the incident in a Facebook statement on Saturday.

“Southaven officers located one male victim suffering from gunshot wounds.

“The officers and medical personnel provided life saving techniques but the individual succumbed to his injuries,” the statement partly read.

The victim was later identified as Carroll, a Baltimore native.

Police said one suspect was arrested and charged with his murder.

“One male is in custody and has been charged with the murder of Reginald Carroll.

“Our thoughts are with the family of Mr. Carroll.

“Thank you to the community for their patience and understanding,” the department added.

The police further assured that there was no ongoing threat to residents, describing the case as “an isolated shooting.”

Carroll, who built his career in stand-up comedy, gained national recognition touring with Katt Williams and headlining his own showcase, Knockout Kings of Comedy.

He also featured in the 2000 edition of Showtime at the Apollo, appeared on the UPN sitcom The Parkers alongside Mo’Nique and Countess Vaughn, and starred in the 2022 television film Rent & Go.

In 2023, he produced the stand-up special Knockout Kings of Comedy.

The Southaven Police Department disclosed that an investigation into his death is ongoing.