AUSTEN, Jane. Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion. (4 VOLUMES - 1818 - FIRST EDITION)

AUTHOR: AUSTEN, Jane. 

TITLE: Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion.

PUBLISHER: London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1818.

DESCRIPTION: FIRST EDITION. 4 vols., 7-1/16" x 4-1/2", collated complete and perfect with all half-titles and blanks (full collation below), bound in apparently an unrecorded publisher's binding in original half-sheep over grey-brown paper-covered boards; titled and numbered in gilt to spines within fillets and blind ornaments; gilt fillets to boards, engraved emerald green bookplates of the Scottish Clan Moncrieffe to front paste-down of each volume.

CONDITION: Light shelf-wear and minor scuffs to corners and head and tail of spines, gilt on spines tarnished, but bright on boards; almost imperceptible minor restoration to upper joint of volume one and to head and tail of spine to two volumes, internally clean and bright, An excellent well-preserved set in original boards. Housed in a brown cloth clamshell slipcase, gilt lettered black morocco spine label.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: The end-leaves are on wove paper watermarked 'RC 1818'. Gilson describes similar variant publisher's bindings "a copy belonging to the National Trust at Tatton Park has overall blue-grey boards and backs, while another, in the Warden & Fellows' Library, Winchester College, has blue-grey boards, and backs apparently original but of unlettered brown calf [...] one endpaper [of another copy] is watermarked 1821, so presumably this variant results from a late boarding-up, after the original labels &c. were exhausted." (Gilson, p. 82). Given the similarity to other variants recorded in single copies only and the watermark dated to the year of issue on the end-papers this set appears to be bound in a so-far unrecorded publisher's variant binding produced in the boarding-up process, utilizing variant backs and boards in the manner of the copies Gilson describes. Full collation: a12 (al =all ) B-N12 06 plus 2 initial and terminal blanks; [A]2 B-012 P10 plus 2 initial and 1 terminal blank; [A]2 B-M12 N8 plus 2 initial and terminal blanks; [A]2 B4 C-012 P6 plus 2 initial and 4 terminal blanks. The half-title in volume 1 (i.e. 'all') folded over to appear before the title, as reported in some copies (Keynes, p. 19).

The first book published under Austen's own name, in a seemingly unrecorded variant of publisher's boards. Gilson A9; Keynes 9.

Northanger Abbey was composed between 1794 and 1798, making it the first novel that Austen wrote. Austen submitted a two volume manuscript of the novel (first entitled Susan) to the London publisher Richard Crosby & Son, but the novel was never published during Austen's lifetime. Gilson reports that as of 1809 Austen changed the title to Catherine. In a letter of 13 March 1817 Austen wrote 'Miss Catherine is put upon the Shelve for the present, and I do not know that she will ever come out'. Persuasion, arguably Austen's most philosophically sophisticated novel, was composed between 1815 and 1816. Austen's letters suggest the novel was ready for publication by March of 1817. It was only following Austen's death in July of 1817 that both novels were published posthumously here together for the first time in December of 1817, in a print run of 1,750 copies. The novel is prefaced with a 'Biographical Notice' from the author's brother, Hugh Austen, which first revealed the author's name to the public (Austen's previous novels were all published anonymously within her lifetime).