AUSTEN, JANE.

THE NOVELS AND LETTERS.

(New York and Philadelphia: Frank S. Holby, 1914). 222 x 152 mm (8 3/4 x 6"). 12 volumes. Hampshire Edition. Limited to 1,250 numbered and registered copies (our copy not numbered).

Quite pleasing recent tan crushed half morocco over marbled boards, raised bands, spines with blind wave rule at top and bottom, spine panels with double gilt rules and central gilt fleuron, red and green labels, top edges gilt, other edges untrimmed. Letter volumes unopened. With colored illustrations by C. E. and H. M. Brock, and facsimiles of autograph letters. One leaf with two-inch marginal tear (likely from rough opening), otherwise only the most trivial imperfections: A VERY FINE SET, much of it obviously unread, in unworn bindings.

In addition to Austen's six novels, this set contains her delightful letters, many of them written to her sister, Cassandra, the dearest companion of her life. Their relationship was sympathetically portrayed in Jane's fiction, where the bonds of sisterhood sustain Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood ("Sense and Sensibility") and Elizabeth and Jane Bennett ("Pride and Prejudice") through all manner of trouble. According to DNB, the two sisters chose spinsterhood because it was preferable to "remain unmarried and together" rather than marry and live apart. The illustrations here, as in the previous item, are by the brothers Charles Edmond Brock (1870-1938) and Henry Matthew Brock (1875-1960), prolific book illustrators who specialized in period pieces like the works of Austen, Goldsmith, and Defoe. For more on Austen, see previous item. (ST11462a-129)