Northanger Abbey; Persuasion
Price: $2,500.00
Will Greatbatch after Pickering. Hard Cover. London: Richard Bentley, 1837. Reprint. Very Good.
Illustrated with a frontispiece and title page vignette, engraved by Will Greatbatch after Pickering. Early reprint of Richard Bentley edition, first published in 1833. Publisher's maroon ribbed cloth, with blind-stamped scroll ornament and Greek key border to boards, spine compartments divided by quadruple blind rules, gilt titles, and white endpapers. Very good, with light sunning to spine, mild wear to head of spine, heavy dimming to spine gilt, corners gently worn to boards, Jane Austen scholar Chris Viveash's bookplate to front pastedown, front hinge starting, staining to frontispiece and vignette title page, contemporary ownership signature to vignette title page, crease to Northanger Abbey title page and rear free endpaper, pencil annotation to Standard Novels title page, repair to tear on p. 1, and tissue repair to gutter between pp. 2 and 3. Overall, a clean copy in original cloth. Gilson D7. Published together six months after Jane Austen's death, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are her first and last novels. Northanger Abbey, a satire featuring a young woman with a penchant for Gothic novels, was Austen's first completed work and was originally to be published under the title "Susan." In contrast, Persuasion, the story of two sweethearts' second chance at love, was a mature work, which Austen began shortly after completing Emma (1815). Interestingly, both novels are set in Bath, a city that had real life significance for Austen, as she lived there from 1801 to 1806. Jane Austen (1775-1817) is well-known for the social criticism she weaves into her novels, using irony and realism to highlight gender roles in marriage and society. The novels that Austen published within her lifetime referred to her, the author, anonymously, her only identifier being her gender and the other books she had written. It was only upon the posthumous publication of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion that a biographical note written by her brother identified Austen as the author of her first four novels, which have since earned their place as cornerstones of British literature. According to Gilson, "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" (p. 211). Bentley's single-volume Standard Novels editions of Austen's books were instrumental in renewing public interest in her work, which had fallen into near-obscurity after her death. According to the Jane Austen Society of North America (JASNA) website, Chris Viveash is a longtime member of the society who has published "thirty-five articles on the works and life of Jane Austen." Item #JA041
