LOT 8
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Jane Austen . First editions, published posthumously, of Austen's final works
作品估价：USD 12,000 - 18,000
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图录号：
8
拍品名称：
Jane Austen . First editions, published posthumously, of Austen's final works
拍品描述：
[Jane Austen]
Northanger Abbey; and Persuasion; By the Author of "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," &c. With a Biographical Notice of the Author. In Four Volumes. London: John Murray. Vols. I and II printed by C. Roworth Bull-yard; Vols. III and IV by T. Davison, Lombard Street, Whitefriars, [December 1817] 1818
4 vols., 12mo, (173 x 97 mm). Without half-titles, paper watermarked "AP | 1816 | 2", early ownership stamp of “T. Hope” to front pastedowns; pale spotting and staining throughout, a few minor holes and flattened creases, the front free endpapers in Vols. II and III are separating along the gutter, small marginal losses at the corners of two leaves in Volume IV (K7 and K8). Early three quarters calf, gilt, marbled paper boards; unobtrusive repairs to calf along the joints and at the corners, some light rubbing and scuffing to boards, a few spots of wear along the edges, hinges either cracked or starting, except for the front hinge of volume I which has been repaired, a pale stain to the front board of vol. II, small surface losses and chipping to the spines of Vols II and III, a scratch and repaired crack in the spine of Vol. IV. Custom clamshell case.
First editions, published posthumously, of Austen's final works, containing the earliest biography of Jane Austen, and the first time her name appeared in one of her books.
“The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public. And when the public, which has not been insensible to the merits of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma, shall be informed that the hand which guided that pen is now mouldering in the grave, perhaps a brief account of Jane Austen will be read with a kindlier sentiment than simple curiosity.”
“Biographical Notice of the Author”
Jane Austen initially tried to publish her first finished novel, Northanger Abbey, then titled Susan, in 1803. Austen’s elder brother Henry, acting as her agent, sold the manuscript to the bookseller Crosby & Co for £10 but, after advertising the book, they never published it. Finally, 13 years later in the Spring of 1816, Henry was able to buy back the manuscript. In the “Advertisement by the Authoress to Northanger Abbey,” Austen addresses her novel’s strangely delayed publication history, barely attempting to hide her contempt: “Why the business proceeded no farther, the author has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it worth while to purchase what he did not think it worth while to publish seems extraordinary.” Once she had her book back, Austen likely reworked parts of the novel, wrote the aforementioned “Advertisement,” and renamed it Catherine, before finally deciding to shelve the project. She died soon after. Six months later, Henry renamed the book Northanger Abbey and published it as the first two volumes in a four-volume set. The story is a romantic bildungsroman, a book about reading, and a satire of the then popular genre of gothic fiction. It centers on a very normal seventeen-year-old girl named Catherine Morland, who has an overactive imagination from reading too many novels, especially gothic fiction and romance novels, such as Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Fanny Burney’s Cecilia and Camilla, and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (see lot 8 for a rare presentation copy of Emma sent to Maria Edgeworth, and a longer discussion of the two novelists’ association).
The third and fourth volumes in the set contain Persuasion, the final novel by Austen. It was composed over a relatively short timeframe, from 1815 to 1816. In a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, from March of 1817, Austen wrote that she had a novel "which may appear about a twelvemonth hence." After her death at the age of forty-one on 18 July 1817, the novel remained unpublished and untitled. Six months later, Henry named it Persuasion and published it with Northanger Abbey in December of 1817, though the title page gives its date as 1818. In the intervening centuries, these posthumous works—Persuasion in particular—have been the source of much critical attention. Two manuscript chapters of Persuasion hold the position of being the only surviving holograph pages of a novel that Austen completed and intended for publication, offering Austen scholars the ability, for the first and only time, to glimpse her creative process.
Besides adding or changing the books’ titles, Henry Austen is also credited with writing the "Biographical Notice of the Author,” which appears in Volume I of this set. Up until that point, all four of Austen’s novels had been published anonymously. As such, Henry’s biography revealed Jane to her public, naming her and providing her readers with a few basic facts about her life. However, likely in the hopes of protecting Henry wrote a sanitized profile of his sister, made up of minor facts, vague anecdotes, and a few falsehoods. For example, he writes that, “Everything came finished from her pen; for on all subjects she had ideas as clear as her expressions were well chosen.” Despite its faults, the “Statement” remains an important source for any author who attempts to write Austen’s biography - a notoriously difficult task due to the scarcity of available information. All things considered, Henry’s biggest lie may have been his statement that, “short and easy will be the task of the mere biographer.”
REFERENCE:
Gilson A9; Sutherland, Kathryn. Jane Austen's textual Lives: from Aeschylus to Bollywood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; Kelly, Helena. Jane Austen, the Secret Radical. New York: Vintage Books, 2018
PROVENANCE:
Early ownership stamp of “T. Hope,” possibly Thomas Hope (1769-1831), the Regency banker, designer, collector, and connoisseur
Northanger Abbey; and Persuasion; By the Author of "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," &c. With a Biographical Notice of the Author. In Four Volumes. London: John Murray. Vols. I and II printed by C. Roworth Bull-yard; Vols. III and IV by T. Davison, Lombard Street, Whitefriars, [December 1817] 1818
4 vols., 12mo, (173 x 97 mm). Without half-titles, paper watermarked "AP | 1816 | 2", early ownership stamp of “T. Hope” to front pastedowns; pale spotting and staining throughout, a few minor holes and flattened creases, the front free endpapers in Vols. II and III are separating along the gutter, small marginal losses at the corners of two leaves in Volume IV (K7 and K8). Early three quarters calf, gilt, marbled paper boards; unobtrusive repairs to calf along the joints and at the corners, some light rubbing and scuffing to boards, a few spots of wear along the edges, hinges either cracked or starting, except for the front hinge of volume I which has been repaired, a pale stain to the front board of vol. II, small surface losses and chipping to the spines of Vols II and III, a scratch and repaired crack in the spine of Vol. IV. Custom clamshell case.
First editions, published posthumously, of Austen's final works, containing the earliest biography of Jane Austen, and the first time her name appeared in one of her books.
“The following pages are the production of a pen which has already contributed in no small degree to the entertainment of the public. And when the public, which has not been insensible to the merits of Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma, shall be informed that the hand which guided that pen is now mouldering in the grave, perhaps a brief account of Jane Austen will be read with a kindlier sentiment than simple curiosity.”
“Biographical Notice of the Author”
Jane Austen initially tried to publish her first finished novel, Northanger Abbey, then titled Susan, in 1803. Austen’s elder brother Henry, acting as her agent, sold the manuscript to the bookseller Crosby & Co for £10 but, after advertising the book, they never published it. Finally, 13 years later in the Spring of 1816, Henry was able to buy back the manuscript. In the “Advertisement by the Authoress to Northanger Abbey,” Austen addresses her novel’s strangely delayed publication history, barely attempting to hide her contempt: “Why the business proceeded no farther, the author has never been able to learn. That any bookseller should think it worth while to purchase what he did not think it worth while to publish seems extraordinary.” Once she had her book back, Austen likely reworked parts of the novel, wrote the aforementioned “Advertisement,” and renamed it Catherine, before finally deciding to shelve the project. She died soon after. Six months later, Henry renamed the book Northanger Abbey and published it as the first two volumes in a four-volume set. The story is a romantic bildungsroman, a book about reading, and a satire of the then popular genre of gothic fiction. It centers on a very normal seventeen-year-old girl named Catherine Morland, who has an overactive imagination from reading too many novels, especially gothic fiction and romance novels, such as Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Fanny Burney’s Cecilia and Camilla, and Maria Edgeworth’s Belinda (see lot 8 for a rare presentation copy of Emma sent to Maria Edgeworth, and a longer discussion of the two novelists’ association).
The third and fourth volumes in the set contain Persuasion, the final novel by Austen. It was composed over a relatively short timeframe, from 1815 to 1816. In a letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, from March of 1817, Austen wrote that she had a novel "which may appear about a twelvemonth hence." After her death at the age of forty-one on 18 July 1817, the novel remained unpublished and untitled. Six months later, Henry named it Persuasion and published it with Northanger Abbey in December of 1817, though the title page gives its date as 1818. In the intervening centuries, these posthumous works—Persuasion in particular—have been the source of much critical attention. Two manuscript chapters of Persuasion hold the position of being the only surviving holograph pages of a novel that Austen completed and intended for publication, offering Austen scholars the ability, for the first and only time, to glimpse her creative process.
Besides adding or changing the books’ titles, Henry Austen is also credited with writing the "Biographical Notice of the Author,” which appears in Volume I of this set. Up until that point, all four of Austen’s novels had been published anonymously. As such, Henry’s biography revealed Jane to her public, naming her and providing her readers with a few basic facts about her life. However, likely in the hopes of protecting Henry wrote a sanitized profile of his sister, made up of minor facts, vague anecdotes, and a few falsehoods. For example, he writes that, “Everything came finished from her pen; for on all subjects she had ideas as clear as her expressions were well chosen.” Despite its faults, the “Statement” remains an important source for any author who attempts to write Austen’s biography - a notoriously difficult task due to the scarcity of available information. All things considered, Henry’s biggest lie may have been his statement that, “short and easy will be the task of the mere biographer.”
REFERENCE:
Gilson A9; Sutherland, Kathryn. Jane Austen's textual Lives: from Aeschylus to Bollywood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005; Kelly, Helena. Jane Austen, the Secret Radical. New York: Vintage Books, 2018
PROVENANCE:
Early ownership stamp of “T. Hope,” possibly Thomas Hope (1769-1831), the Regency banker, designer, collector, and connoisseur