Presented by Adam Douglas, Senior Rare Book Specialist at Peter Harrington.
Octavo (166 104 mm). Finely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe in early 20th-century green straight-grain morocco, title and decorations to spine gilt with gilt raised bands, gilt rules to covers, marbled endpapers, turn-ins and top edge gilt. With the original green cloth bound in at rear (Parrish binding II). Spine faded, a little rubbing to spine ends and tips, internally fresh. An exceptional copy.
First edition, first issue of the Brontë sisters’ first publication. Extremely rare, the first issue is extant in tiny numbers: it was published in an edition of 1,000 copies, but just 39 copies sold. Following the success of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the unsold stock of 961 copies was purchased by Smith in September 1848. Hoping to capitalise on the novel’s success, they re-issued this collection of verse the following month with a cancel title-page, retaining the original date. Published pseudonymously to forestall possible prejudice against female writers, the slim volume contains 19 poems by Charlotte (“Currer”), and 21 each by Emily (“Ellis”) and Anne (“Acton”). Though a commercial failure, its literary merits did not go entirely unrecognized. A reviewer in the Athenaeum wrote that Ellis had “a fine quaint spirit … which may have things to speak which men will be glad to hear” (4 July, 1846).
