7 Valuable First Edition Books YOU Could Be Hoarding

If you’re a fan of books, which you probably are if you clicked on this article, then I expect you have a LOT of books. Like, an unhealthy amount of books stacked in random places like on the windowsill and under the desk and on top of the shower. No? Just me? Well, anyway, you probably have a lot of books.

Did you know that some of those books could be worth a whole bundle of cash? I’ll make an assumption that you do, but I will also assume that, like me, you have no idea what you’re looking for when you go valuables hunting. First editions of some books sell like sexist merchandise at a Trump rally, and you could have one squirreled away and not even know it! To help you get started, here are twelve of the books that could be hiding right under your nose.

1. The Hobbit – J R R Tolkien
You know those editions of ‘The Hobbit’ that have the really distinctive covers? If you know Tolkien, you know which one I mean – the one with the blue and green mountains? Well, the 1937 edition, published by Allen & Unwin, only ran to 1500 copies. People have really gone nuts lately for Tolkien, thanks mostly to the films and, last year, this edition was valued at £65,420! A first edition ‘Lord of the Rings’ (1954) is valued at £20,000 too, if you happen to have the set.

2. The Tale of Peter Rabbit – Beatrix Potter
This year marks the 150th birthday of Beatrix Potter and the literary world has been celebrating hard. This is a good time to unearth a Peter Rabbit first edition but boy, are they hard to come by. Potter had been rejected by six publishers when she decided to go private and so only 500 copies of the very first 1901 run were ever made. There was a second run the year after that is almost equally as rare. Earlier this year, a first edition sold at auction for £43,000 – £8000 more than the guide price.

3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – JK Rowling
This is the biggie, the one that even the greenest first edition hunter knows is a goldmine in waiting. If you’ve got any book signed by JK, you’re onto a winner, but the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’ is where it’s at. Bloomsbury only printed 500 copies way back in 1997, and it seems that 300 of those copies went to libraries. If you do have one, check the copyright number – it should count down from 10 to 1 – and the author credit (Joanne Rowling, not JK). One of these bad boys sold online for around £30,000.

Bonus HP treasure – a collector’s edition of ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’ can snag you up to £1000 if it’s in good condition.

4. Winnie The Pooh – AA Milne
‘Winnie The Pooh’ is one of those books that I feel like everyone had read to them as a child, and I honestly don’t feel like any copy of the book I have ever seen looks new. They’ve all been loved to deaths by generations of kids since 1926 when it was first published. Winnie turns 90 this year and, like Peter Rabbit, it might be a good time to find him out. A first edition is an amazing find, but in the same year there was another 350 book limited run signed by both Milne and his illustrator EH Shepard and this is where the money is. An edition sold online this year fetched just under £10,000.

5. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
First editions of any of Lewis’ Narnia books are hard to find in a good condition these days, but they do exist. ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’ was first published in 1950 by Geoffrey Bles and unsigned versions are on sale for around £9000. If you have a signed one, it will be worth significantly more, but it is unlikely to make the dizzy heights of the £12000 that a copy earned in 2012. That version was signed ‘Jack Lewis’, the only copy ever found where Lewis signed his nickname.

6. The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett
The first of Pratchett’s Discworld novels, published in 1983, had a very complicated birth and finding a first edition that matches all the criteria is probably a work of magic in itself. Due to a mix up of dates, the US edition published by St Martin’s Press, is actually the true first edition. The UK version, published by Colin Smyth Publishing, followed very soon after. However, the holy grail of Pratchett hunting (which DO exist) is The Colour of Magic with the US cover but the UK content. If you have a US version, check to see if the copyright page is British. There’s a copy – not even one of these special ones! – on sale for over £8000.

7. Northern Lights – Philip Pullman
The first book in the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy, this book was published by Scholastic Children’s Books in 1995, and features the distinctive golden compass on the front cover. People go nuts for the entire trilogy, to be honest, but the first book is always going to be the rarest. Prices have fluctuated a bit for this one, but ten years ago it was listed at £4000 and, more recently, a signed version is online for just over £8000 and an unsigned copy is going for at least £2000.

Happy hunting, book nerds! I only want a small cut of the profits if you manage to find anything special!