Lot 179
Austen, Jane
Northanger Abbey. A Novel. [And:] Persuasion
Auction: 16 June 2026 from 10:00 BST
Description
London: Richard Bentley, 1833. 8vo (16 x 9.5cm), 2 parts in 1 volume (pagination and register continuous), [2] 440 pp., near-contemporary half calf, twin labels to spine, bands tooled in gilt, marbled sides, endpapers and edges, engraved frontispiece and additional vignette title-page by Greatbatch after Pickering, letterpress title-page, all dated 1833, bound without series-title, spine and joints slightly rubbed, frontispiece and vignette title spotted, a few marks elsewhere [Gilson D4; Keynes 143; Sadleir 3734a.28]
Footnote
First Bentley edition, the first edition in one volume, and the first to be illustrated. 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).
