Bookplates

Bookplates

Feb 2, 2024 | Duncan McCoshan, Recent Articles, Tips for Collectors

One of the pleasures of cataloguing books is coming across bookplates. These are often interesting, delightful, sometimes infuriating, and occasionally alarming. They are a source of fascination and have been written about extensively, so we thought it might be a good idea to share some examples from the shelves here at Peter Harrington.

“Familiar signs of ownership”

So, what is a bookplate? Book historian David Pearson explains: “the use of engraved or printed paper labels, carrying an owner’s identity, to mark the possession or gift of a book, is almost as old as printing itself, and it is one of the most familiar signs of ownership seen by students of provenance”.

Chronology of Styles

One of our earlier examples is that of the quarrelsome bishop of Bangor, John Evans (c.1652-1724), who was foolish enough to pick a fight with Jonathan Swift. His handsomely curlicued plate, a fine example of what is known as the Early Armorial style, appears in a special copy of the Earl of Clarendon’s Survey (1676), a fierce critique of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. The plate displays the symbols of his office (the mitre, crozier, and key) and bears a very close resemblance to that of another bishop, Henry Compton of London. This is illustrated in David Pearson’s Provenance Research in Book History, where he identifies the engraver of Compton’s plate as William Jackson, “who actively solicited clients for bookplates and who thereby became a major influence in popularising their usage”.

Chronology of Styles

One of our earlier examples is that of the quarrelsome bishop of Bangor, John Evans (c.1652-1724), who was foolish enough to pick a fight with Jonathan Swift. His handsomely curlicued plate, a fine example of what is known as the Early Armorial style, appears in a special copy of the Earl of Clarendon’s Survey (1676), a fierce critique of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan. The plate displays the symbols of his office (the mitre, crozier, and key) and bears a very close resemblance to that of another bishop, Henry Compton of London. This is illustrated in David Pearson’s Provenance Research in Book History, where he identifies the engraver of Compton’s plate as William Jackson, “who actively solicited clients for bookplates and who thereby became a major influence in popularising their usage”.

The next fashion to emerge in Britain is the rather confusingly named Jacobean style, introduced a little before 1700 and popular until around 1745. A nice example of this is that of Henry Home, Lord Kames (1695-1782), whose plate appears in a collection of works by the Scottish philosopher Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. Here we have vigorously scrolled mantling surrounding his coat of arms, below which is placed a scallop-shell, a common feature of such plates.

The next fashion to emerge in Britain is the rather confusingly named Jacobean style, introduced a little before 1700 and popular until around 1745. A nice example of this is that of Henry Home, Lord Kames (1695-1782), whose plate appears in a collection of works by the Scottish philosopher Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun. Here we have vigorously scrolled mantling surrounding his coat of arms, below which is placed a scallop-shell, a common feature of such plates.

Next is Chippendale, the style that succeeded the Jacobean, named after the famous cabinet-maker, and fashionable between roughly 1740 and 1780. This example belonged to Sir Edward Winnington (1749-1805), of Stanford Court, Worcestershire; a pretty plate, alive with rococo flourishes and a hint of chinoiserie (very much en vogue) and is pasted into his handsomely bound Cambridge-printed Bible of 1768.

Next is Chippendale, the style that succeeded the Jacobean, named after the famous cabinet-maker, and fashionable between roughly 1740 and 1780. This example belonged to Sir Edward Winnington (1749-1805), of Stanford Court, Worcestershire; a pretty plate, alive with rococo flourishes and a hint of chinoiserie (very much en vogue) and is pasted into his handsomely bound Cambridge-printed Bible of 1768.

Now we come to a personal favourite, the eye-catching military bookplate of Charles William Vane, third marquess of Londonderry (1778–1854): pendant to his arms are his many military awards, and for good measure there are supporters in the shape of prancing hussars; at the top there are two crests flanking his coronet and below a flowing banderole bearing his motto. A brave but not particularly brilliant soldier – Sir John Moore described him as “a very silly fellow” – Vane served with variable distinction throughout the Peninsular War. The plate reveals something of the character of the man, whose dashing and dandified portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence is at the National Portrait Gallery. “Silly” he may have been, but Vane was a discerning collector; his plate appears here in The Antient and Present State of the County of Down (Dublin, 1744) by the Irish antiquary Charles Smith.

Now we come to a personal favourite, the eye-catching military bookplate of Charles William Vane, third marquess of Londonderry (1778–1854): pendant to his arms are his many military awards, and for good measure there are supporters in the shape of prancing hussars; at the top there are two crests flanking his coronet and below a flowing banderole bearing his motto. A brave but not particularly brilliant soldier – Sir John Moore described him as “a very silly fellow” – Vane served with variable distinction throughout the Peninsular War. The plate reveals something of the character of the man, whose dashing and dandified portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence is at the National Portrait Gallery. “Silly” he may have been, but Vane was a discerning collector; his plate appears here in The Antient and Present State of the County of Down (Dublin, 1744) by the Irish antiquary Charles Smith.

Women Collectors

A trio of women collectors can here stand-in their sister-bibliophiles. Preeminent among them is Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861). Her simple but unusually shaped armorial plate can be seen in a lovely copy of a fine edition of the works of Caesar (1790), a testimony to her taste and discernment.

Women Collectors

A trio of women collectors can here stand-in their sister-bibliophiles. Preeminent among them is Frances Mary Richardson Currer (1785-1861). Her simple but unusually shaped armorial plate can be seen in a lovely copy of a fine edition of the works of Caesar (1790), a testimony to her taste and discernment.

A rather delightful plate (designed by one L. Bradshaw) enlivens the front pastedown of Dorothy Bussy’s novel Olivia (1948). This belongs to Muriel Orr-Ewing (1900-1994), who, after years of travel and three marriages, in 1940 set up a finishing school in London called The Grove. She was a founding president of the British Association of Women Executives and dabbled in filmmaking.

A rather delightful plate (designed by one L. Bradshaw) enlivens the front pastedown of Dorothy Bussy’s novel Olivia (1948). This belongs to Muriel Orr-Ewing (1900-1994), who, after years of travel and three marriages, in 1940 set up a finishing school in London called The Grove. She was a founding president of the British Association of Women Executives and dabbled in filmmaking.

In her first edition of Frank Baker’s Miss Hargreaves (1940), Kathleen Joan Dawson has pencilled in the space at the foot of her Walter Crane-inspired bookplate that it was “a gift from the author”. Hopefully his comic fantasy lightened the war years, and she would surely be cheered to know that the book has been carefully looked after and remains in very good condition.

In her first edition of Frank Baker’s Miss Hargreaves (1940), Kathleen Joan Dawson has pencilled in the space at the foot of her Walter Crane-inspired bookplate that it was “a gift from the author”. Hopefully his comic fantasy lightened the war years, and she would surely be cheered to know that the book has been carefully looked after and remains in very good condition.

Stepping into the limelight among celebrity bookplates is that of Noël Coward, an unsurprisingly elegant affair that combines the masks of comedy and tragedy into a single persona. It adorns a first edition of Thunderball (1961), jokingly inscribed to “The Master” by Ian Fleming.

Stepping into the limelight among celebrity bookplates is that of Noël Coward, an unsurprisingly elegant affair that combines the masks of comedy and tragedy into a single persona. It adorns a first edition of Thunderball (1961), jokingly inscribed to “The Master” by Ian Fleming.

Open this first edition of Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and you are confronted by an alarming memento mori in the form of a skull through which a worm wriggles. The owner’s initials “PMF” are tattooed on the forehead. Despite our best endeavours, he or she remains elusive.

Open this first edition of Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1872) and you are confronted by an alarming memento mori in the form of a skull through which a worm wriggles. The owner’s initials “PMF” are tattooed on the forehead. Despite our best endeavours, he or she remains elusive.

Multiple Ownership and Upstaging

Sometimes bookplates show us ownership by more than one person. A copy of the signed limited edition of Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958) bears the bookplates of two eminent collectors: Robert A. Wilson, proprietor of the famous Phoenix Bookshop in Greenwich Village, and Donald G. Drapkin, whose collection was sold through Christie’s in 2005.

Multiple Ownership and Upstaging

Sometimes bookplates show us ownership by more than one person. A copy of the signed limited edition of Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958) bears the bookplates of two eminent collectors: Robert A. Wilson, proprietor of the famous Phoenix Bookshop in Greenwich Village, and Donald G. Drapkin, whose collection was sold through Christie’s in 2005.

Here owners share equal billing on the front pastedown. However, sometimes one owner may upstage another. A nice exemplar turns up in a first edition of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891): occupying the front free endpaper is the unremarkable armorial bookplate of American collector E. Hubert Litchfield. Facing him is William Henry Radcliffe Saunders, army officer and member of the Bookplate Society, who in 1904 commissioned a zinger of a bookplate from the distinguished Scottish engraver-designer Graham Johnston. Here the dense foliate mantling embraces his coat of arms and crest, a wonderful betusked elephant head. By comparison, poor Litchfield looks rather timid.

Here owners share equal billing on the front pastedown. However, sometimes one owner may upstage another. A nice exemplar turns up in a first edition of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891): occupying the front free endpaper is the unremarkable armorial bookplate of American collector E. Hubert Litchfield. Facing him is William Henry Radcliffe Saunders, army officer and member of the Bookplate Society, who in 1904 commissioned a zinger of a bookplate from the distinguished Scottish engraver-designer Graham Johnston. Here the dense foliate mantling embraces his coat of arms and crest, a wonderful betusked elephant head. By comparison, poor Litchfield looks rather timid.
A more brutal way of upstaging is to place one bookplate on top of another, not unlike stepping in front of someone as the camera shutter closes. A good example of this can be seen in William Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespeare (1757), where two members of the aristocratic Needham family jostle for attention: the nineteenth-century plate of the first Earl of Kilmorey obscuring all but the crest of a lively plate from the preceding century, probably that of the ninth viscount.
A more brutal way of upstaging is to place one bookplate on top of another, not unlike stepping in front of someone as the camera shutter closes. A good example of this can be seen in William Dodd’s The Beauties of Shakespeare (1757), where two members of the aristocratic Needham family jostle for attention: the nineteenth-century plate of the first Earl of Kilmorey obscuring all but the crest of a lively plate from the preceding century, probably that of the ninth viscount.

Melancholic Remains

And then there are those books from which the bookplate has been torn, roughly erased, or simply annihilated, leaving but a ghost; as if the current owner could not bear the presence of a predecessor. But sometimes enough of a trace is left to give a clue: luckily Victor Duchâtaux (1823-1905), a lawyer and member of the municipal council at Reims, is unaware of the fate that befell his bookplate, the heart of which has been wrenched out. The book in which it clings on, a first edition of Jean Bodin’s De la demonomania des sorciers (Paris, 1580), the most influential witch-hunting guide of the sixteenth-century and a Renaissance best-seller, must have once taken pride of place in his library. He is almost gone but not quite forgotten.

Melancholic Remains

And then there are those books from which the bookplate has been torn, roughly erased, or simply annihilated, leaving but a ghost; as if the current owner could not bear the presence of a predecessor. But sometimes enough of a trace is left to give a clue: luckily Victor Duchâtaux (1823-1905), a lawyer and member of the municipal council at Reims, is unaware of the fate that befell his bookplate, the heart of which has been wrenched out. The book in which it clings on, a first edition of Jean Bodin’s De la demonomania des sorciers (Paris, 1580), the most influential witch-hunting guide of the sixteenth-century and a Renaissance best-seller, must have once taken pride of place in his library. He is almost gone but not quite forgotten.

Written by Duncan McCoshan, specialist
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“Not of an age, but for all time”: The Legacy of Shakespeare’s First Folio

“Not of an age, but for all time”: The Legacy of Shakespeare’s First Folio

Nov 8, 2023 | Literature, Recent Articles, Shakespeare

This month marks the 400th anniversary of one of the most important books ever published: Shakespeare’s First Folio. It has been credited with shaping and solidifying Shakespeare’s influence on the English language – the literal and literary heft of the First Folio granting Shakespeare’s works a prominent and permanent place in the English literary canon. However, at the time of the Folio’s publication, many of Shakespeare’s plays had started to fall out of fashion and were staged less frequently. The First Folio was the first book solely dedicated to printed plays ever to be published in the prestigious folio format – an imposing size usually reserved for religious texts such as Bibles and collections of sermons. This folio format lent a gravitas and importance to Shakespeare’s plays, marking them out as something far beyond mere entertainments, and in the process established the world’s most important literary canon.

‘The Play’s The Thing’

In Shakespeare’s day, plays were written to be performed, and rarely printed – and as a result many were lost. The real importance of the First Folio rests on the fact that it contains 36 plays by William Shakespeare, half of which had never been published before. Of Shakespeare’s plays, only five are missing – Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Edward III, and the two lost plays, Cardenio and Love’s Labour’s Won. Without the First Folio, 18 of Shakespeare’s plays would have been lost forever, including some of his most loved and well-known works such as As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Macbeth, Julius Caesar and The Tempest.

A pair of hands holding open Shakespeare's First Folio on the first page of The Tempest.

The plays themselves were typeset from varying sources; many, including The Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for Measure, were set into type from manuscripts prepared by Ralph Crane who was a professional scrivener employed by the King’s Men (the acting company in which Shakespeare belonged). Many others were taken from what are known as Shakespeare’s foul papers – working drafts of a play.  When these working drafts were completed, the author or a scribe would then prepare a transcript or fair copy of the play. These copies were heavily annotated with detailed stage directions needed for a performance, and usually served as prompt books used to help guide the performance of the play.

An estimated 750 First Folios were printed in 1623; currently 233 are known to survive worldwide. More than a third of these are housed at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which is home to a total of 82 First Folios. On the private market they are exceedingly rare and highly sought after. One can expect a copy to fetch a price tag in the millions of pounds.

The Birth of Shakespeare’s Canon

The unpublished plays were the property of Shakespeare’s theatrical company, the King’s Men, with manuscripts in the possession of Shakespeare’s two fellow company members and friends, John Heminge and Henry Condell. They compiled the contents of the First Folio in 1623, seven years after their friend’s death, by which time most of Shakespeare’s plays had fallen out of the repertoire. Were it not for the First Folio, the scattered papers would have been worthless. With its great heft and imposing appearance, the First Folio established the Shakespearean canon for all time.

In book form, the plays found a new lease of life and sense of permanence. The First Folio was reprinted in 1632, again in 1663, and in 1685, the four Shakespeare folios spanning the century, eclipsing the rival collections of Ben Jonson and Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, the English dramatists who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I (1603–1625). Shakespeare was the only dramatist to achieve four folio editions in the 17th century, so the publication of the four editions in relatively quick succession set the seal of distinction on Shakespeare’s reputation as England’s foremost playwright. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan and Jacobean plays, already a little old-fashioned in 1623, were among the first to be revived in the Restoration, when the theatres reopened for business after the enforced darkness of the puritanical Commonwealth. They have continued to be performed ever since.

Two pages from the First Folio.

The Printing of the First Folio

The publishers of the First Folio were the booksellers Edward Blount and father and son, William and Isaac Jaggard all members of the Stationer’s Company. William Jaggard is sometimes seen as an odd choice by Heminge and Condell to print the First Folio because he had previously published works by other authors under Shakespeare’s name, and in 1619 had printed new editions of 10 Shakespearean quartos to which he did not have clear rights, some with false dates and title pages which are referred to as the False Folio by Shakespeare scholars.

The printing of the First Folio was probably done between February 1622 and early November 1623. It was listed in the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue to appear between April and October 1622, however modern consensus is that this was simply intended as advance publicity for the book. The first impression had a publication date of 1623, and the first recorded buyer of the First Folio was Edward Dering, an English antiquary, who made an entry in his account book on December 5, 1623, recording his purchase of two copies for a total of £2.

Some pages of the First Folio were still being proofread and corrected as the printing of the book was in progress. As a result, individual copies of the Folio vary considerably in their typographical error with around 500 such corrections having been made in this way with the typesetters changing out and resetting the type in the middle of printing. These corrections consisted only of simple typos and clear mistakes in their own work. There is much evidence here to suggest that the typesetters rarely if ever referred back to their manuscript sources.

One error in the printing process was that the play Troilus and Cressida was originally intended to follow Romeo and Juliet, but the typesetting was stopped, potentially over issues with rights to the play. It was later inserted as the first of the tragedies and does not appear in the table of contents.

Frontispiece from Shakespeare's First Folio with the author portrait.

Preface to the Folio and The Droeshout Portrait

Ben Jonson, one of the most important English dramatists of the Jacobean era, wrote a preface to the folio addressed “To the Reader” is sits facing the famous engraving of Shakespeare on the opposite page. The engraving opposite Johnson’s preface is known as the Droeshout portrait and it serves as the frontispiece for the title page of the First Folio. It is one of only two works definitively known to be a depiction of Shakespeare and is thought to be based on an equally famous oil painting known as the Chandos portrait. The copperplate engraving used by Martin Droeshout to create the portrait for the First Folio was subsequently reused for all three later folios. The plate began to wear out from frequent use and had to be heavily re-engraved and re-touched with each subsequent folio.

The Book Collector’s Prize

Of the surviving copies of the First Folio most are missing some of their original leaves, with only about 56 copies complete, and many of those have been “made-up” with leaves supplied from other copies. It was during the 19th century, when the First Folio became firmly established as a popular item with book collectors, that many “improvements” to copies were made, it was common for early calf bindings to be discarded and replaced with shiny red goatskin shimmering with gilt.

The most assiduous folio hunter of all time was the president of Standard Oil, Henry Clay Folger, who bought his first First Folio in 1903 and whose Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, now has the world’s largest holdings, comprising 82 copies, of which 13 are complete. The vast majority of First Folios are similarly housed in major libraries, universities, and other institutional holdings. Only 27 or so copies remain in private collectors’ hands, and only six of those are complete.

Complete copies of the First Folio emerge in commerce once in a generation. The first complete copy of the 21st century was from the library of the Chicago collector, Abel E. Berland, sold at auction by Christie’s in New York, on October 9, 2001. Known as the Canons Ashby copy and bound in early panelled calf, c.1690-1730, it had passed three times through the hands of the famous Philadelphia bookseller, Dr A. S. W. Rosenbach. Like most complete First Folios, it was not perfect and had its title-leaf and two, possibly three, other leaves supplied from another copy. It sold for $6,166,000 to Paul G. Allen, co-founder of Microsoft

Nearly 20 years later, the same auction house sold a complete First Folio that had been bequeathed to Mills College in Oakland, California, for $9,978,000. The relatively small price uplift over two decades reflects the truth that no two copies of the First Folio are strictly alike. This copy was bound in full blind-stamped russia in about 1810 and had been shown at the 1951 Festival of Britain Exhibition of Books. It had the first leaf with Ben Jonson’s verse address “To the Reader” inlaid, a few letters on the title and a portion of the portrait restored, and the last leaf re-margined. It was 15mm shorter than the copy bought by Paul Allen, having been trimmed very close at the top of the leaves, often removing the upper box-frames. These factors were enough to keep it from breaking the $10m mark. Even so, it remains the most expensive work of literature ever auctioned.

Earlier this year, in 2023, we offered a First Folio for sale at £6.25 Million which has now sold.

A section of text from the Shakespeare play, Hamlet.

A Wordsmith Without Equal

Shakespeare’s primacy as the earliest and greatest writer in modern English has led to some unsupportable claims made for him. It used to be argued that he was a preternaturally inventive wordsmith, with a huge number of original coinages attributed to him. But he wouldn’t have been so popular in his lifetime if he couldn’t make himself understood to the general playgoer. What Shakespeare displayed was an extraordinary linguistic ability to redeploy parts of speech in unexpected contexts, a process of transference known as functional shift. In Troilus and Cressida, for example, he describes how “Kingdom’d Achilles in commotion rages”, where he converts “kingdom” from a noun to an adjective. It’s the earliest instance of this usage recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary and just one of many such that we can assume to be Shakespearean creations. Shakespeare may not have plucked new words out of thin air (a phrase first found in The Tempest), but he had a special gift for combining words to create resonant phrases that made their way out of the First Folio into the English language. Only one other book, the King James Bible of 1611, has had such a profound and lasting influence on the common stock of English phrases.

William Shakespeare: Bard and Muse

It can be argued that Shakespeare’s is the shadow that all subsequent writers in the English language find themselves trying to escape from under. While Shakespeare was known for adapting existing stories and myths, it is his versions which have stood the test of time laying the foundations for subsequent re-imaginings and interpretations.

Many important modern writers, including Toni Morrison and Margaret Atwood, have created work either in response to or inspired by Shakespeare’s plays. The Bard’s ghost haunts the Scylla and Charybdis episode of James Joyce’s Ulysses, in which Joyce’s alter-ego Stephen Dedalus presents his “Hamlet theory” to a group of acquaintances in the National Library of Ireland.

The title of William Faulkner’s masterpiece, The Sound and the Fury, is taken from a line from MacBeth, as is Agatha Christie’s By the Pricking of my Thumbs, while David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest is taken from a line in Hamlet.

Even Disney has played its hand at Shakespearean adaptation most notably with The Lion King not to mention the countless film adaptations of Shakespeare’s work by famed directors such as Derek Jarman, Julie Taymor, Peter Greenaway and Kenneth Branagh.

Reinterpretations of Shakespeare’s work are not only limited to the Anglosphere with works in many other languages having been influenced by the plays collected in the First Folio; a particularly good example of this is Aime Cesaire’s Une Tempête, a post-colonial reimagining of The Tempest.

 

Sections of this article were previously printed in an issue of Antique Collecting.

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45th International Antiquarian Boston Book Fair27th – 29th October 2023

45th International Antiquarian Boston Book Fair
27th – 29th October 2023

Sep 21, 2023 | Book Fairs

Location: Hynes Convention Center, Downtown Boston

Website: www.bostonbookfair.com

The 45th International Antiquarian Boston Book Fair returns to the Hynes Convention Center in Downtown Boston. Celebrating its 45th year, this three-day event features fine and rare printed materials from around the globe, including illuminated manuscripts, modern first editions, children’s books, ephemera, photographs, maps and autographs, as well as antiquarian books on a vast array of topics.

More than 100 rare book dealers from Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Serbia, the UK, and the US will exhibit an alluring treasure trove for seasoned bibliophiles and first-time attendees. Whether browsing or buying, the Boston Book Fair offers something for every taste and budget—books on art, politics, travel, gastronomy, science, sport, natural history, first editions, Americana, fashion, music, children’s books, and much more—appealing to a range of collectors and casual browsers.

 

Hours & Admission
Friday, October 27, Opening Night, 4PM-8PM. Tickets: $25 (available online or at the box office)
Saturday, October 28, 12PM-7PM. Free admission.
Sunday, October 29, 12PM-5PM. Free admission
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Jane Austen, Illustrated

Jane Austen, Illustrated

Jan 15, 2019 | Articles, Illustrated Books, Literature, Recent Articles

For today’s audience, visualising Jane Austen is easy. In numerous recent TV and film dramatisations, the Regency era is communicated through a parade of empire line gowns, sedate formal dances and serene stately homes. So settled are we, in fact, on this familiar interpretation of Austen novels today, that it is easy to discount the fact that Austen has been imagined very differently in the past.

The earliest film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice in 1940, for example, was set in the Victorian period, in order that it might be marketed in the same vein as the wildly popular Gone with the Wind, which had appeared the previous year. It thus featured a cast of female characters in enormous Scarlett O’Hara style dresses and bonnets.

MGM Studios , via Wikimedia Commons

To the first audiences of Austen on screen, the novels were presented as 19th century romances, rather than the acerbic social commentaries of the previous century which appear on the page, and the endurance of this conception of Austen in the popular collective consciousness still holds a certain amount of power.

This was not the first time, however, that Austen had been misrepresented to make her more marketable. Henry James, in 1905, can be found deploring the way in which

the body of publishers, editors, illustrators, producers of the pleasant twaddle of magazines … found their ‘dear,’ our dear, everybody’s dear, Jane so infinitely to their material purpose, so amenable to pretty reproduction in every variety of what is called tasteful, and in what seemingly proves to be saleable form.

From the first illustrated editions, which began to appear in the 1830’s, the content of the novels was being subjected to subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) manipulation to suit what the publishers perceived as palatable to the audience’s tastes at the time.

Just as in TV, film and stage adaptations, the illustrations of a novel have the power to profoundly influence the audience’s perception and draw out different aspects; the domestic or the pastoral, the political or social, the familial or the romantic. They can also alter factors such as the perceived age range of the audience for the novels by accentuating either scenes of gothic melodrama or the lighter, cosier elements of the narratives. When considering historical illustrations of Austen’s books, we must keep in mind that illustrators’ choices could have been influenced by a number of factors we may never be able to puzzle out; a publishers’ brief, market considerations, current trends or fashions etc. The illustrators themselves may not even have read the novels cover to cover.

Austen’s novels did not appear in illustrated form until the early 19th century. Illustrated novels were expensive to produce, and even works celebrated from the time of publication (which Austen’s were not) were often not illustrated until later editions. The copyrights to all of Austen’s six major novels were bought in 1832 by publisher Richard Bentley, fifteen years after Austen’s death. It was Bentley whose publication of each in turn as part of his Standard Novels series cemented their place in the literary canon. The illustrations for these editions – each featured a steel-engraved frontispiece and a title page vignette – were the first visualisations of Austen to be seen by a wide audience, and thus impacted greatly upon the reception of her works in the cultural consciousness.

First Bentley Edition of Sense and Sensibility, with illustrated frontispiece after Ferdinand Pickering

First Bentley Edition of Sense and Sensibility, with illustrated frontispiece after Ferdinand Pickering

This first interpreter of Austen was Ferdinand Pickering, illustrator of previous Bentley publications of the Gothic, romantic and domestic persuasion. Perhaps feeling most comfortable in this territory, Pickering duly provided illustrations for Austen’s novels which conformed to the mould of standard Victorian pot-boilers. Ignoring the Regency fashions that would be accurate to the setting of the novels, Pickering depicts female characters as wasp-waisted and voluminous-skirted, stepping with implausibly tiny feet through a series of scenes either domestically or dramatically preoccupied: in short, images familiar to readers from the post-gothic melodramas popular in the 1830s. Instances of surprise or strife are emphasised, almost to the extent of stretching the actual content of a scene to breaking point while leaving Austen’s native humour and mitigating satire unillustrated. For example, the image chosen for the frontispiece of Northanger Abbey depicts Henry Tilney on discovering Catherine Morland snooping in his late mother’s off-limits chambers. Catherine clasps her hands together beseechingly  and the whole scene is bathed in menacing shadows. It is unclear, at a glance, whether Tilney is the villain of the piece rather than its hero. Historian and critic Thomas Babbington-Macaulay wrote to a friend of the Bentley edition: ‘Get a sight of the Book next time you go to a circulating library at Liverpool; and tell me whether Henry Tilney be not the most offensive Varmint man that ever you saw’. In reality, the scene, within the wider context of Austen’s mock-gothic novel, is intended as a send-up of exactly the kind of sinister moment Pickering has ultimately represented. The illustration, it seems, has rather missed the joke.

Pickering’s illustrations: Frontispiece to Northanger Abbey and title page vignette to Sense & Sensibility

Similarly misleadingly, the title-page vignette selected for Sense & Sensibility depicts an exaggeratedly gothic version of Marianne’s illness.  The illustration, showing Marianne as a ghostly vision in frilled nightclothes being almost physically restrained by Elinor, would look more at home in Wuthering Heights, or another more gothically-disposed novel of the 19th century. While technically true to the novel, the choice of this scene (one of comparatively unrepresentative peril and drama in the larger context of the narrative) seems a strange introduction.

Indeed, Pickering’s tendency both to draw out and amplify gothic themes, and to place his characters in fashions contemporary to the 1830s, situated Austen’s novels so firmly in the context of the 19th century that she was often grouped with other Victorian novelists such as Charlotte Bronte and George Eliot in later literary discussion. This misappropriation was compounded by the fact that Bentley’s Standard Novels series of Austen’s work was reissued with Pickering’s illustrations until 1886. As it would have been through Bentley’s editions that many readers first approached Austen, her novels were effectively frozen in time as artefacts of early Victorian literature. When, in the mid-nineteenth century, other publishers issued illustrated editions of Austen’s work as the copyright on each novel expired, Pickering’s designs became the benchmark. Several illustrators chose to perpetuate the early Victorian fashions and setting. The illustrations for the 1851 Routledge edition of Pride and Prejudice by Sir John Gilbert, for example, have been criticised as rather lacklustre imitations of Pickering’s work, retaining the determinedly Victorian setting while shedding the sensationalist subjects. The resulting illustrations depict neat and demure heroines engaged in generic and passive activities, and are remarkable largely only for their lack of interest. Chapman & Hall’s 1870 ‘Yellowback’ edition also chooses Victorian dress for its characters but is, in contrast, notable for its bizarre choice of scene to illustrate; Lydia (we presume) is depicted in lurid colour at a soldiers’ encampment at Brighton, conversing with three officers, despite the fact that Austen never wrote this scene. Subsequent American editions of the novels, presumably taking their cue from the British, continued to illustrate characters in Victorian dress into the late nineteenth century.

Chapman & Hall 'Yellowback' edition of Pride & Prejudice, 1870

Chapman & Hall ‘Yellowback’ edition of Pride & Prejudice, 1870

The first illustrations to make an attempt at period-appropriate representation were those created by William Cubitt Cooke for J. M. Dent & Company’s ten volume edition of Austen’s novels in 1892. Cooke produced thirty illustrations for Dent which made an attempt at representing Regency dress and furnishings, providing readers with a more accurate visualisation of the books as they actually appeared on the page, rather than a more superficial rendering which kept an eye firmly on marketability.

The edition, however, which would set the standard for Austen illustration was George Allen’s 1894 ‘Peacock’ Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by Hugh Thomson. So called because of the lavish peacock motif that appeared on the endpapers, title page and gilt-embossed cover, it featured over 160 illustrations and decorations. Its landmark status in the publishing history of Austen, as well as its attractiveness, ensure its continued collectability, with copies usually fetching prices in the low thousands. Thomson’s Austen was also the first to attempt to inject humour into illustrations of the novels. Whimsical headpieces, often not depicting scenes directly described by Austen but attempting to capture the light and ironical tone off the novels, appear at the head of each chapter. For example, the five Bennet daughters are shown in one instance seated, flanked on the left by a fussing Mrs Bennet and on the right by the odious would-be suitor Mr Collins, who inspects them. A small sign above the head of the middle sister (presumably Jane) reads ‘not for sale’. Thomson went on to illustrate the five other Austen novels after his defection from George Allen to Macmillan. When it came, however, to Mcmillan’s own edition of Pride and Prejudice, they were in something of a bind, as Thomson’s earlier illustrations for the novel belonged to George Allen. They therefore engaged another illustrator, Charles Brock, for the project.

‘Peacock’ Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by Hugh Thomson

the ‘Peacock’ Pride and Prejudice, illustrated by Hugh Thomson

Charles Brock and his brother Matthew must also be credited with shaping the visual trend of Austen, producing over two hundred illustrations across several editions and formats. Chief amongst their innovations was the use of coloured plates, as in the ten volume Austen edition of 1898 produced by J. M. Dent. Following the trend of historical accuracy that emerged in the 1890s, the Brocks’ illustrations depict characters in period costume inhabiting highly detailed scenes.

The Brock brothers reputedly collected period furniture and would have their friends model for scenes in their Cambridge studio. Brock’s illustrations also capture some of Austen’s characteristically arch humour in the scenes and captions chosen. A plate for Emma, for example, shows the obnoxious Mrs Elton in a rather gaudy dress asking “How do you like my gown?”

An illustration of Lydia for Pride & Prejudice by C. E. Brock

Though the popularity of illustrated editions of Austen continued into the 20th century, ensuring repeated illustrated interpretations, it was film adaptations that increasingly began to shape popular notions of how Austen’s novels looked. The first on-screen adaptation of Pride & Prejudice in 1940 starred Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson and was marketed heavily to theatre-goers and was seen by millions.

As mentioned above, it took advantage of the recent success of other book-to-screen adaptations, opting for lavish and exaggerated Victorian costumes and sets for maximum visual titillation.  As with the illustrated editions, the prevailing trends of the day dictated the visual presentation of Austen. Almost from the advent of her popularity, Austen has been big business, and marketability continues to be the main factor affecting our conception of how the novels are visualised.

Illustrated Jane Austen novels:

Is my Harry Potter book valuable? How to tell if your copy is a first edition

Is my Harry Potter book valuable? How to tell if your copy is a first edition

Mar 19, 2018 | Childrens' Books, Collectors' Guides, Collectors' Guides featured, Is my Harry Potter book valuable?

This comprehensive article will help you establish whether you have a first edition Harry Potter on your hands. If you do have a first edition and are interested in selling it, please contact us on our Sell To Us page.

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide, and first editions of her books have very quickly become collectable. By far the most valuable book in the series is the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, published on 30 June 1997 by Bloomsbury in London.

But to have any real collectable value, it has to be a copy of the first edition, first impression (also known as the first printing). This means the very first batch of books off the press, of which there were only a few thousand.  Reprints of Philosopher’s Stone (and even first editions of the later books in the series) have much lower values, in part because so many more of them were printed.

Harry Potter first edition, softcover issue

First, what do the books look like? The first printing was bound in two different ways. The rarest is the hardback issue, with a cover of laminated boards. Only 500 copies were bound this way, and 300 of those were sent to libraries. Because library books receive so much wear and tear we are left with only 200 copies in potentially fine collectable condition, and these rarely appear on the market. The other binding was a regular paperback of which a few thousand copies were produced for sale.

Next , how do you tell whether your copy, which may look very similar to the one pictured above, is really a valuable first edition?

To be a first edition, in either hard or soft cover, there are four very important issue points, all of which your book must have:

1. The publisher must be listed as Bloomsbury at the bottom of the title page. See photo below:

2. The latest date listed in the copyright information must be 1997.

3. The print line on the copyright page must read “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”, ten down to one, exactly. The lowest figure in the print line indicates the printing. (For instance, if your copy has “20 19 18 17”, it’s a less valuable seventeenth printing.)

First edition number line.

You may have been told that you have a first printing if the copyright is in the name of “Joanne Rowling”, but that’s not true. All early printings of this title have the same copyright statement.

This is what the whole back of the title page should look like:

Back of title page in the first edition of Harry Potter.

4. On page 53, in the list of school supplies that Harry receives from Hogwarts, the item “1 wand” must appear twice, once at the beginning and once at the end. This mistake was corrected in the second printing of the book (although it re-appeared in some later printings).

Mistake on page 53.

5. On the back cover there is a missing “o” in “Philospher’s Stone”.

Philosopher’s spelled as Philospher’s with the missing “o”.

If your book meets all these requirements then congratulations, you have a first edition! Depending on the binding and condition, it could be worth anywhere from many hundreds to tens of thousands of pounds.  If you’re interested in selling it, or would like to have a custom protective box made to house it, then please contact us. To see the Harry Potter books we currently have for sale please click here.

Though both the paperback and hardback first editions of the Philosopher’s Stone are of value, this is not the case with the other books in the series. For the other titles, it is only the first hardback edition with the dust jacket that have collectable value. If you have a copy of one of these titles that meets all these requirements below, and that you would like to sell, please contact us.

Chamber of Secrets must have been published in 1998 by Bloomsbury with no mention of subsequent edition, publisher, or later date on the copyright page, and have a printing number sequence of “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”.

Chamber of Secrets first edition copyright page

Prisoner of Azkaban must have been published in 1999 by Bloomsbury with no mention of subsequent edition, publisher, or later date on the copyright page, and have a printing number sequence of “10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1”. The most valuable copies are the first issue, which must have “Joanne Rowling” as the author instead of “J. K. Rowling” on the copyright page, and a dropped line of text on page 7.

 

The last four titles in the series, Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, and Deathly Hallows, must have the words “First Edition” printed on the copyright page. The print run for the first edition of all of the last four titles was very large, and as a result, even first edition copies in the dust jackets in fine condition are fairly commonly found, and not presently of high value. We are currently interested in acquiring signed copies only of these titles.

Goblet of Fire copyright page

Browse all currently-available Harry Potter books here.