Pride and Prejudice. A Novel -
Jane Austen
1833 - Richard Bentley, London - First illustrated edition & first single volume edition.
A finely bound ‘Pride and Prejudice’, the first Bentley edition, the first edition in one volume, and the first to be illustrated.
Written when Jane Austen was just twenty-one, but revised for publication anonymously thirteen years later. Elizabeth Bennet, eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, the folly of judging by first impressions, the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.
Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and additional vignette title-page engraved by William Greatbatch after drawings by George Pickering. Bentley's editions of Austen, published as part of his 'Standard Novels' series in 1832-3 (and later in 1833 re-issued as a collected edition), were of great importance in introducing Austen to a wider audience following their original appearance in the 1810s. There were intervening editions in French and German, and American editions, but ‘no English reissue of [Jane Austen’s] novels is known after 1818 until in 1832 Richard Bentley decided to include them in his series of Standard Novels' [Gilson, p. 211]
Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, her novels had been published anonymously and was only identified for the first time in one of her novels, five months after her death, by her brother Henry on the first publication of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.
Provenance: Contemporary inscriptions of two previous owners to the verso of the frontispiece, the second of Ellen Longman, Cofeal(?) Lodge, Highgate, is written over the first, making it difficult to decipher.
References: Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen, D5; Keynes, Jane Austen; a bibliography, 69. Sadleir, A Bibliographical Record, 3734a.30
Octavo (binding size 17.5x11.4cm), pp. [2] [4] 340 [2]. Bound without Bentley's ‘Standard Novels’ series-title Bound to style in full tan calf, smooth spine ruled and decorated in gilt, burgundy calf label lettered and ruled in gilt, boards with single filet borders in blind with floral cornerpieces, red speckled edges. Condition: Some pages with moderate spotting and soiling mostly to the margins, very small chip to pp. 89/90, in fine binding. Ref: 112648 Price: HK$ 50,000
Written when Jane Austen was just twenty-one, but revised for publication anonymously thirteen years later. Elizabeth Bennet, eligible bachelor Fitzwilliam Darcy, his friend Bingley and her beloved sister Jane, the folly of judging by first impressions, the friendships, gossip and snobberies of provincial middle-class life.
Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and additional vignette title-page engraved by William Greatbatch after drawings by George Pickering. Bentley's editions of Austen, published as part of his 'Standard Novels' series in 1832-3 (and later in 1833 re-issued as a collected edition), were of great importance in introducing Austen to a wider audience following their original appearance in the 1810s. There were intervening editions in French and German, and American editions, but ‘no English reissue of [Jane Austen’s] novels is known after 1818 until in 1832 Richard Bentley decided to include them in his series of Standard Novels' [Gilson, p. 211]
Jane Austen, the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Hampshire in 1775, and later lived in Bath and the village of Chawton. As a child and teenager, she wrote brilliantly witty stories for her family's amusement, as well as a novella, Lady Susan. Her first published novel was Sense and Sensibility, which appeared in 1811 and was soon followed by Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Austen died in 1817, her novels had been published anonymously and was only identified for the first time in one of her novels, five months after her death, by her brother Henry on the first publication of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey.
Provenance: Contemporary inscriptions of two previous owners to the verso of the frontispiece, the second of Ellen Longman, Cofeal(?) Lodge, Highgate, is written over the first, making it difficult to decipher.
References: Gilson, A Bibliography of Jane Austen, D5; Keynes, Jane Austen; a bibliography, 69. Sadleir, A Bibliographical Record, 3734a.30
Octavo (binding size 17.5x11.4cm), pp. [2] [4] 340 [2]. Bound without Bentley's ‘Standard Novels’ series-title Bound to style in full tan calf, smooth spine ruled and decorated in gilt, burgundy calf label lettered and ruled in gilt, boards with single filet borders in blind with floral cornerpieces, red speckled edges. Condition: Some pages with moderate spotting and soiling mostly to the margins, very small chip to pp. 89/90, in fine binding. Ref: 112648 Price: HK$ 50,000