[Austen, Jane]

Pride & Prejudice: A Novel.  By the Author of "Sense and Sensibility."  London: T. Egerton, 1813



 



3 volumes, 12mo (6  1/2  x 4  1/8  in.; 165 x 105 mm).  Half-titles; scattered light foxing, offsetting and soiling; ownership signatures at upper margins of title-pages closely trimmed.  Early 19th-century half green morocco, spines gilt, marbled boards; joints starting, spines somewhat worn at ends, covers trifle rubbed. 

Sarah Harriet Burney (signatures)

Gilson Ae; Grolier/English 138; Sadleir 62b; Tinker 204

First edition.  Sarah Harriet Burney's copy, with her signature on the title-page of each volume.  The Englsih novelist Sarah Harriet Burney (1772–1884) was the youngest child of the second marriage of Dr. Charles Burney, and the half-sister of Fanny Burney (Mrs. d'Arblay).  She published five novels during her lifetime and her work was admired by Jane Austen herself. In one of Austen's letters, she remarks that she is reading one of Burney's novels for the third time. In turn, Sarah Harriet's publisher sent her Austen's novels and she was one of the earliest readers to recognize the genius of Jane Austen and praise her work to others.  Burney was an independent-minded woman, who shocked her acquaintances by, among other things,  travelling alone by public conveyance over the Alps.  She died alone in a Cheltenham boarding house in 1844.