The worst depiction of Gollum in The Hobbit

Tove Jansson's illustrations for the 1962 Swedish edition of J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit are great-except for Gollum. Although the original Hobbit did not indicate the size of Gollum-Tolkien addressed the issue of size before this 1962 edition was released. #hobbit #tolkien #gollum

[@no.6660]

When Tolkien first wrote the hobbit, he left the description of Gollum’s height very vague, leading to this misconception

[@niinakurko9241]

Tove Jansson (the finnish creator of Moomintrolls) made the drawing based on the description of Gollum in the book. Tolkien actually realized because of that drawing that Tove was being loyal to the description and not contradicting it. That made him edit the part, so the text would present accurately how he imagined Gollum to look like and/or how Gollum was presented elsewhere.

[@mwvidz324]

Very good insight, calling it the "worst" is a bit mean in my opinion. Golum is weird, and that picture indeed gives a feeling of that. Though I imagine finns are a bit biased when itt comes to this.

[@niinakurko9241]

You might be right about that 😁and also right that it doesn't look like Gollum!

[@sudanemamimikiki1527]

Calling it the worst is just stupid and uninformed imo...
Gollum didn't have a set size when the illustration was made. Tolkien himself realised this and made changes to subsequent books describing the creature in a bit more detail
​@@mwvidz324

[@longwlenguyen4214]

@@niinakurko9241made that more hilarious, Tove were hoping and wanted to draw the Hobbit in order to adopt a new drawing style than just the Moomins style, but yet her cover art still felt like if Snufkin live in Medieval Europe lol.

[@randallc9315]

I feel like that swedish illustrator may have been influenced by depictions of swedish folklore in their drawing of Gollum. The first thing that came to mind when seeing that was the Moomintrolls.

[@jgranseth]

The illustrator of this book is indeed finnish writer and illustrator Tove Jansson, creator of The Moomins.

[@raphthecollector3824]

That Swedish Gollum is a bit closer to the villains of Cartoon Network ha! Interesting find nonetheless.

[@theodorecarter6601]

The Polish version had Gollum literally be a dinosaur, like a brontosaur. Not kidding.

[@misss.o.j.]

I really like the Swedish illustration... but maybe they thought Gollum was a water-troll?

[@amadeosendiulo2137]

The illustrator loved trolles, she even wrote a series of books about white chubby trolls living in a round house.

[@marianaboscornea2633]

❤❤❤👍

[@irat913]

I'd love to see the rest of those illustrations from the University students