The Annoying Hobbit

[davem]

Originally Posted by Ophelia

I grew up still at the Soviet system which provided a lot of corrections in books . I was 4 when I first became aware of the book . As a child I saw the pictures on the covers which indicated that it indeed is a children's book . I began to read but stoped doing that for whatwas written there was too complicated for a 4 year old so I started to look over the illustrations . After that day I was panically afraid of the book , I even had nightmares . Can you imagine what had they done ? All of the pictures were dim , dark , horrifying , full of monsters . Actually the pictures were mostly only of monsters as the person who drew them had seen them . Needless to saythat I never touched the book again

Having just looked through my copy of The Annotated Hobbit & seen the illustrations from various editions of TH from across the globe, I have to say I was struck by how 'dark' & disturbing some of the ones in the eastern European editions are, in contrast to some of the western European editions, many of which are quite cute & cartoon like. Can't help wondering what the reason for this difference is.