1966 Ballantine Books (USA) revised ed. 2nd printing pbk
Title: The Hobbit
Author: JRR Tolkien
Published by: Ballantine Books
Country: USA
Year of Publication : 1966
Edition: revised edition, 2nd printing
Paperback
The cover illustration by Barbara Remington for the first Ballantine Books edition (1965) originally featured a lion and a pair of emus. Tolkien himself remarked “What has it got to do with the story? Where is this place? Why emus? And what is the thing in the foreground with pink bulbs?”. By the time of the second printing, the lion had been airbrushed out, but the emus remain.
That is hilarious! I just read the chapter in the Tolkien biography by Humphrey Carpenter which discusses this travesty and wanted to see it with my own eyes.
I think the original cover illustration of the Finnish translation of The Lord of the Rings is also hilariously awful. Exactly what that menacing figure in crimson robes and a spiked coronet (?) is supposed to represent, one can only guess.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/7/77/Taru_sormusten_herrasta.jpg