From The Hobbit to Pride and Prejudice: The first edition children's books worth a small fortune

• That quick cleaning of the loft or the garage over the August Bank Holiday weekend might be more bountiful than you think.
• A number of ‘true’ first edition classics are still earning huge sums through online marketplaces, with some commanding five-digit sums.
• So what are the 10 most valuable first edition books, and what are those average asking prices people are asking for, and others are willing to pay?

We’ve looked at vinyl, cassettes, CDs, weird pieces of music memorabilia, including a Spice Girls-affiliated scooter, but for bibliophiles waiting for their turn, today is that day.

The huge values that first edition books fetch at auction houses very much rival, if not surpass, those of their twelve-inch counterparts. While we’ve seen through Discogs several records fetch well over sums of £2000 or more, it pales in comparison to how much some ‘true’ first editions have sold for.

Take, for example, the Gutenberg Bible, the first major book printed with movable type in the West. Complete copies are rarely sold, but a single volume once sold for over $2 million, with complete copies estimated to be worth over $35 million.

However, we’re aware not everyone has a copy of that or da Vinci’s The Codex Leicester, but how about some Lewis Carroll or Margery Williams instead?

Homeprotect conducted a study to identify the most valuable first-edition listings of classic children’s books that, if sold, could earn you extra money amid the cost-of-living crisis, and potentially be put towards something like, oh, say some lucrative vinyl once again?

The science part (Methodology)

The study investigated the value of first-edition children's books by analysing a sample of 66 titles. The sample was created by selecting the first 59 books from the Penguin 'Top 100 Children’s Books' list and adding seven children's classics from a prior 2019 study.

Prices were determined by searching for first-edition copies on AbeBooks, an online marketplace for rare and out-of-print books. For each title, the first five most recently listed first-edition books were recorded.

Listings for books in extremely poor condition or those with bespoke author signatures or personal letters were excluded from the analysis. All prices are estimates and do not account for taxes or shipping fees.

What are the most expensive first edition books in 2025?

Jane Austen’s hugely influential and widely adapted Pride and Prejudice takes the top spot, according to the study, with first edition books of the classic selling, on average, for £139,356.

The amount, despite the value of the other books, overshadows the other authors based on the scarcity and importance of the work in the literary world - it is almost worth what the next four books in Homeprotect’s study.

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, released in 1719, comes in second with an average listing price of £39,221, while that is closely followed by The Hobbit (£27,125), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (£20,381) and Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol (£18,735).

The most recent book on the list was released in 1947, with an average listing price of £13,335; that would be the haunting Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, which not only holds a value due to, again, scarcity and age but also its fundamental place in world history.

The 10 most expensive first edition books in 2025

1. Pride and Prejudice (1813) - Jane Austen - £139,356
2. Robinson Crusoe (1719) - Daniel Defoe - £39,221
3. The Hobbit (1937) - J.R.R. Tolkien - £27,125
4. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) - Lewis Carroll - £20,381
5. A Christmas Carol (1843) - Charles Dickens - £18,735
6. The Velveteen Rabbit (1922) - Margery Williams - £16,935
7. Swallows and Amazons (1930) - Arthur Ransome - £15,133
8. The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) - Anne Frank - £13,353
9. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea (1870) - Jules Verne - £12,383
10. Grimm’s Fairy Tales (1812) - The Brothers Grimm - £10,008