An Austen family copy, from the library of Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen (1829-1893), Jane Austen’s grand-nephew, in a beautiful Regency binding. It is uncommon to find Jane Austen titles in contemporary bindings and even more so with such intimate provenance.
Edward Knatchbull was likely gifted the present copy of Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion, along with Austen’s four other published novels, by his mother Fanny Knight (Frances Catherine Austen Knight, Lady Knatchbull 1793-1882). Four of the five novels were uniformly bound, and volume one of Mansfield Park bears the inscription “Edward Knatchbull 1838” which is likely in Fanny Knight’s hand. Fanny Knight often described as Austen’s favourite niece, was the daughter of Jane Austen’s third eldest brother Edward Knight (formerly Austen).
In 1884, almost seventy years after Jane Austen’s death, Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen, then Lord Brabourne, published a two-volume collection of Austen’s letters which he had inherited from his mother. These letters make up over half of the total surviving correspondence from Jane Austen and constitute a significant contribution to our understanding of her life and personality. Austen wrote no autobiographical notes or diaries, and her sister Cassandra destroyed or redacted many of her letters; which she may have felt were too personal in nature to be passed on. The manuscript material passed on to Edward Knatchbull from Fanny Knight included letters from Jane Austen to Fanny, as well as the bulk of the letters from Jane Austen to her sister Cassandra, and the previously unpublished manuscript of Lady Susan, now at the Morgan Library. The letters which Jane Austen wrote to her niece Fanny Knight contain more on the subject of love, marriage and courtship than any other surviving Austen correspondence and so naturally are of special interest to Austen scholars and admirers alike.
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are the first and last novels Jane Austen completed writing, published posthumously by her siblings Cassandra and Henry Austen. The book contained the first memoir of the author, published as a short biographical notice written by her brother Henry Thomas Austen. No further biographical writings on Austen would appear until just over fifty years later, when A Memoir of Jane Austen was published, written by her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh.
In exceptional condition, joints expertly and sympathetically reinforced, some foxing and offsetting effecting all four, though particularly to the first volume. Old label residue to the head of the spine on volume one, and green silk place holder detached. Small blot of ink to back cover of volume two, and front free endpaper loose from middle to bottom of volume four.
Provenance: Edward Huggesen Knatchbull-Huggesen, 1st Baron Brabourne, cr. 1880 (1829-1893), in the sale of his library at Puttick & Simpson on 26th–28th June, 1893, Lot 21 [with Emma], £1/10s. to Quaritch.
Gilson, A9.
