Reading through rec.arts.books.tolkien, I stumbled upon this very interesting review of a new (apparently released just last week) revised edition of the Annotated Hobbit by Douglas Anderson.

I just received a review copy of the new edition of the Annotated Hobbit (working in the industry has some benefits). I have only been able to skim over it.

Some changes from the first edition are that it includes some colour plates (from JRRT and other artists) more commentary on some of the black and white illustrations, the notes on the textual revisions of The Hobbit are now included in the body of the book instead of as an appendix. Some of the annotations are expanded (for example the ‘pointy ears’, the ‘scientific version revision’, the two Thrains controversy is addressed, Thranduil’s hair is mentioned). There is an expanded bibliogaphy.

All new to this edition is the inclusion of the ‘Quest of Erebor’ one version of which was included in UT. The UT version was the compressed ‘C’ text, with extracted passages from the longer ‘B’ text given at the end. The entire ‘B’ typescript is given as an appendix in this
edition and does include previously unpublished information.

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Tar-Elenion