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AUSTEN, Jane.
Emma: A Novel.
In three volumes. By the Author of "Pride and Prejudice," &c. &c.
First edition of perhaps the most perfectly constructed of Jane Austen's novels. She had fallen out with Egerton over publication of Mansfield Park and transferred to Murray, who published the second edition of that book and the first edition of Emma on the same terms: each was published at the author's expense, with profits to the author after payment of a 10 per cent commission to the publisher. In keeping with Murray's stated views on edition sizes, 2000 copies were printed. Emma is the only one of Jane Austen's novels to bear a dedication, to the Prince Regent, the arrangement of which generated a richly comic correspondence between the author and the Prince Regent's librarian.
3 volumes, 12mo (168 × 102 mm). Contemporary mottled calf, neatly rebacked to Regency style, covers with gilt scroll borders, marbled endpapers, sprinkled edges, with bookbinder's ticket of Lubbock, Newcastle, to first free endpaper. Housed in a leather entry slipcase made by The Chelsea Bindery. Half-titles present in vols. II and III. Bookplates and library labels of John Waldie. Mottled calf boards a little dried, joints of reback now slightly rubbed, a few leaves with very slight browning at fore-edge margins in vol. III only, the contents otherwise clean and fresh throughout; a very good copy.
