Bentley’s 1833 Illustrated Edition of Sense and Sensibility, part of Lot 531©Whyte’s
if the evidence from Whyte’s of Dublin’s auction last weekend is anything by which to judge.
The complete set of five volumes of Bentley’s first illustrated editions of Jane Austen’s novels published in 1833 realised a sale price €3500. The pre-auction estimate was for €1300-1500, therefore you can see that the sale price was over double the estimate. Go here to see all the sale results, particularly that of the Austen novels, which were Lot 531. The books were from the stock of the late antiquarian book dealer, James Fenning and the sale sadly signified the end to over a century of Dublin bookselling by the Fenning family.
Katherine Cahill was present at the sale and saw the set of Austen books before they were sold. She tells me that they were a beautiful little set, and were very faithfully described by the auctioneer. Ah well, we can dream…
6 comments
October 27, 2012 at 5:46 pm
aurora
I am not surprised. Jane Austen is really lovely and charming and simply divine.
October 28, 2012 at 10:27 am
jfwakefield
And above all, a genius ;)
October 27, 2012 at 10:00 pm
cathyallen
Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m always happy to see that her work is being affirmed by the modern equivalent of a Regency-runaway-best-seller, namely BIG BUCKS! Or, in this case, I guess, PRODIGIOUS POUNDS?
:-) But I can’t help the wistful feeling that it’s a shame she didn’t make more money in her lifetime…
October 28, 2012 at 10:28 am
jfwakefield
Enormous Euros, actually ;) I agree, Cathy. Just imagine how many millions she would make today…..
October 29, 2012 at 4:10 pm
cathyallen
How provincial of me to not recognize the Euro sign; I actually had to look it up! *sigh* Oh well; I guess I’m just another ethno-centric American. C’est la vie! ;-)
But GOODNESS — if she only had a dollar (heh, heh!) for each of her books sold since 1817, and each fan-fiction book, and each non-fiction book! The mind boggles… Thanks again, Julie.
November 5, 2012 at 11:09 am
imogen88
My goodness, more great stuff, it just shows people have good taste!