?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 30,000 - $ 40,000
AUSTEN, JANE. Sense and Sensibility: A Novel. In Three Volumes. By A Lady. 3 volumes. 170 x 105 mm. Half-titles. Final blanks in vols. 2 and 3; preliminary blank in vol. 2. 12mo, bound to style in 1/2 tan calf and marbled boards, spines ruled and lettered in gilt; first volume B2 with mended tears, B3 with short closed tears to blank margins, ownership signature dated 1859 in second (on prelim blank) and third volume (on half-title), diminishing tidemark beginning at prelims into approximately first twenty pages in vol. 2, similar staining confined to prelims only in vol. 3. London: Printed for the author by C. Roworth and published by T. Egerton, 1811
First edition of the author's first published novel and the rarest of her six major works. The first version of Sense and Sensibility is known to have been written about 1795 in the form of letters. It was then revised and prepared for the press in the first year of Jane Austen's residence at Chawton (1809-1810). "Probably it consisted of only 1000 copies or even less, and this would account for the fact that Sense and Sensibility is so much the rarest of the novels at the present day" (Keynes). The first edition sold out in less than two years with the second edition appearing in 1813. Gilson A1; Sadlier 62b; Keynes 1.
