Rare books

Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell.Publisher: London, Smith, Elder, and Co., 1847
Price: £39,500

First edition of one of the keystone books for any collection of 19th-century literature, Charlotte Brontë's first novel and the first published novel of any of the Brontë sisters.

3 volumes, octavo. Contemporary blond half calf, double green morocco labels, spines gilt in compartments with flower-head tools and lattice work, matching spot-marbled paper sides, endpapers and edges. Housed in a leather entry slipcase made by The Chelsea Bindery. With half-titles. Ownership inscriptions dated 1851 and 1951 to front free endpapers verso. Spines rubbed and evenly darkened, two small inkstains on B1r, vol. I, affecting three letters of one word but not the sense, with offset on the facing page blank but for imprint, a few minor marks elsewhere, but an excellent copy in a strictly contemporary binding.Rare books