Pride and Prejudice. by AUSTEN, Jane - 1836: A novel.

London: Richard Bentley,, 1836. Duodecimo (163 x 102 mm). Contemporary green quarter calf by W. Courtney, spine gilt to compartments with twin red morocco labels, marbled sides and endpapers. Engraved vignette title and frontispiece by William Greatbach after Ferdinand Pickering. Contemporary bookplate of Miss. J. Greene of Clonliffe. Half-title present. Very light wear to extremities, a couple of white marks to front cover. A very good copy. Early Bentley edition. In 1832-3 Richard Bentley bought the copyright to all Austen's novels, which had not been reissued since 1818, to include them in his Standard Novels series. The Bentley illustrations, by the obscure Ferdinand Pickering, played an integral part in the reception of Austen's novels; according to one Austen scholar, they "promoted a sense that her novels were best understood as familial, female focused, and sensational. For decades, these illustrations would have served to steer readers away from the conclusion that Austen's fiction ought to be understood as social, comic, or didactic" (Davoney Looser, The Making of Jane Austen, 2017, p. 20). Bentley frequently reprinted the novels, but these later printings are uncommon, and are especially so in a contemporary binding. Gilson D7.