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First Editions Thus. Six volumes, octavos; pp., Pride and Prejudice (1907): xiv, 336., Northanger Abbey (1907): x, 206, [2]., Sense and Sensibility (1908): viii, 308., Mansfield Park (1908): viii, 396., Emma (1909):viii, 395, [1]., Persuasion (1909): viii, 216. With 24 full-colour halftone plates after water-colours by C. E. Brock to each volume, including tissue-guarded frontispiece and decorative title-page. All collated and perfect. Publisher's original sage green cloth, highly ornate rose and basket design gilt stamped to upper boards, titled to spine and upper boards. Illustrated endpapers. Top edge gilt, others uncut. An exceptionally clean, bright and fresh set. Small spots of soiling to lower board of Pride and Prejudice, and Sense and Sensibility, hinges a little weak on Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. A neat contemporary gift inscription to front free endpaper of Mansfield Park, and slight spot of ink to rear end-papers of Emma. A very handsome near fine set, illustrated by one of the finest of the Golden-Age illustrators. Charles Edward Brock (1870-1938) was an influential and prolific water-colourist, line artist, and illustrator of novels. In 1895 Brock and his brother Harry (1875-1960) were tasked with creating new water-colour illustrations for Jane Austen's six novels. Prior to that point, illustrators of Austen had tended to depict characters in Victorian, rather than Regency dress, the Brocks instead chose to painstakingly recreate Austen's world as it would have appeared within her lifetime. As their biographer wrote: 'both were attracted to the architecture, furniture, and costume of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and set about gathering period artefacts for their studio'. Brock was initially inspired by his contemporary Hugh Thomson (1860-1920), comparing the works of the two, Laura Caroll and John Wiltshire write: 'Brock often achieves a telling interaction between his characters, where Thomson's are often, in comparison, listless. And in general, Brock makes much more use of body language, his figures have more eye contact with one another, his style has a theatrical and often comic dynamism Thomson's lack'. It was through these efforts that the Brocks radically transformed the depiction of Austen's world to one that may now be familiar to us. The illustrations in these volumes are lively, rich, and brimming with Regency-era details. Gilson: E114, E116, E120, E124, E127, E129; Horne, 128; Rogerson, 'The Brocks', (1985); Carroll and Wilthshire, 'Jane Austen Illustrated'; 74-5, ODNB.
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