Jane Austen

First edition of Austen's Northanger Abbey and Persuasion illustrated by the famed Hugh Thomson.

• Jane Austen (English).
• Illustrated by Hugh Thomson (English).
• London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1897.
• xvi, 444 pages.
• Octavo.
• Includes 40 illustrated plates by Thomson.
• Publisher's gilt engraved boards and spine in an art nouveau design by A.A. Turbayne.

From the MacMillan 'Peacock Series', designed by Rurbayne, whose work was widely celebrated at the time, as was that of Hugh Thomson, perhaps the pre-eminent representative of what has come to be known as ‘the Wig and Powder School’ of English illustration. Thomson’s delicate pen drawings of English life lent themselves perfectly to the new technique of photo-engraving (he was a pioneeer of the genre) and he was soon in popular demand for illustrations of the novels of Jane Austen, Fanny burney, Mrs. Gaskell, Charles Reade, as well as for contemporaries like Austin Dobson. His influence on contemporary illustrators was felt keenly for many years, and can be seen in the work of Charles E. Brock and others of the ‘school.’.