1830s’ Austen
AUSTEN, Jane. Mansfield Park. London; Richard Bentley. 1837

8vo.; bound in late twentieth-century period-style sprinkled half tan calf over marbled boards, spine with 5 raised bands ruled and tooled in gilt with onlaid red lettering label, top edges gilt; engraved pictorial frontispiece and title-page by William Greatbatch after Ferdinand Pickering (1810-1889) which depicts the scene with Mary Crawford presenting a gold chain as a gift to Fanny Price (which we later discover was really from Henry Crawford) and, in the title-vignette, the scene with Sir Thomas Bertram interrupting the play rehearsals; externally fine, internally clean and fresh throughout with minor toning and spotting to engraved plates, which are usually heavily foxed.

Fourth edition of Austen’s classic novel, which was first published by Thomas Egerton as a triple-decker in 1814 (in an edition of about 1,250 copies).  A second edition was published in 1816 by John Murray (in a run of about 2,000); again as a triple-decker. This was lightly revised by Austen and appeared not long before her death.

In 1833 “Mansfield Park” was published by Richard Bentley, being the third edition overall. It retained the corrections and revisions from the 1816 edition but is also significant for being the first one-volume edition, as well as being the first with illustrations, in the form of a pictorial title and frontispiece.  This is the second Bentley edition of 1837; therefore the second illustrated edition.