11 BAUMAN RARE BOOKS 08AUSTEN, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. London, 1813. Three volumes. 12mo, period-style full red straight-grain morocco gilt. $38,000 “For What Do We Live, But To Make Sport For Our Neighbors, And Laugh At Them In Our Turn?” Second edition—published only months after the first— of Jane Austen’s second and most popular novel, one of the most sought-after titles in English literature. “Elizabeth’s own energy and defiance of character respond to Rousseau’s and the popular notion of the pliant, submissive female… None of her novels delighted Jane Austen more than Pride and Prejudice… She had given a rare example of fiction as a highly intelligent form… This remains her most popular and widely translated novel” (Honan, 313-20). Written between October 1796 and August 1797, Pride and Prejudice was originally an epistolary novel; Austen revised it in 1812. “Her father offered Pride and Prejudice to [publisher] Cadell on 1 Nov. 1797; but the proposal was rejected by return of post, without an inspection of the manuscript” (DNB).” The size of the [first] edition is not known… perhaps 1500 copies… The first edition was sold off very rapidly and a second one was printed in the same year” (Keynes, 8). Cassandra Austen’s records indicate that the first edition of her sister’s novel was issued in January 1813, and the second edition in October 1813; this copy has owner signatures on the title page (“J. Spottiswoode”) dated August 1813. Occasional scattered foxing, mostly in Volume II. Beautifully bound. “I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.”
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