Emma - Jane Austen
Jan 19th, 2007 by Bauman
“The author was at the height of her powers” - A.S.W. RosenbachĂ‚Â
Emma was the fourth and last novel which Jane Austen published in her lifetime. “When it was written the author was at the height of her powers, and she write the book rapidly and surely, encouraged by the success of her previous novel to express herself with confidence in the way peculiarly her own” (Rosenbach).
Austen published all her novels analymously, but they nevertheless brought her some fame. In 1815 she visited London to see Emma through the press and to nurse her brother Henry through an illness. The Prince Regent, later George IV, heard of her visit and sent his chaplain, Mr. Clarke, to wait upon her and to give her a tour of the magnificent library at Carlton House.
Through his chaplain the Prince Regent also extended his permission for Austen to dedicate her next novel to him; Emma is her only novel to contain a dedication. “Austen’s self-knowledge, her love of detail…[helped her] to create a proud, self-willed, self-guided, vexing, and outrageous Emma and her greatest novel” (Honan).
We are pleased to offer an excellent copy of the novel many consider to be Austen’s best, one of only 200 copies printed, this copy from the private collection of Scottish peer Hugh Montgomerie, Twelfth Earl of Eglinton, in unrestored original boards and complete with all half titles.