AUSTEN, Jane.

£25,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington

Northanger Abbey: and Persuasion. First edition of Austen's final published work, pairing Northanger Abbey, probably the first full-length novel she wrote, with Persuasion, her last completed novel. Her brother Henry's biographical notice, dated 13 December 1817, is the first acknowledgement in print of Jane Austen as the author of her six novels.Austen wrote Northanger Abbey around 1798-99 and sold the copyright to the publisher Benjamin Crosby & Son in 1803. However, Crosby never brought it to print and sold the manuscript back to Austen in 1815, spurring her to revise the text. Austen wrote Persuasion around 1815-16; neither novel was yet published upon her death in 1817. Austen's sister and brother then worked with John Murray to bring out this edition, which comprises the two novels in four volumes. Though Keynes claims the print run probably exceeded 2,000 copies, Gilson establishes from Murray's ledgers that the print run was 1,750, of which 1,049 were sold before the end of the year.

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