Emma. Illustrated by Hugh Thomson, with an introduction by Austin Dobson. London: Macmillan, 1897. Second Edition thus. Publisher’s dark red cloth covers with elaborate gilt design to spine and front board & peacock illustrated endpapers, all edges gilt. A nice bright copy otherwise a fine copy.

First published in December 1815, Austen explores the concerns and difficulties of genteel women living in Georgian-Regency England: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” This is the first Thompson illustrated edition, one of the most notable book illustrators of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.