Austen's “Emma” First Edition Thus Illustrated By Thomson, 1899.

AUSTEN, Jane, [DOBSON, Austin, introduction], [THOMSON, Hugh, illustrator]. Emma. London and New York: Macmillan and Co., Ltd.; The Macmillan Co., 1899.

First Thomson-illustrated edition. Fourth printing of the first edition text. Octavo (8vo). Original red cloth elaborately decorated in gilt to upper board and spine, all edges gilt, decorative Peacock endpapers. Introduction by Austin Dobson. Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. With tissue-guarded frontispiece and 39 full-page illustrations by Hugh Thomson.

Contents clean and well-preserved with some light scattered foxing mostly affecting the tissue guard, as usual. Binding tight and secure; spine sun faded with minor wear to extremities with few marks to rear board. All content, including half title page, and plates present. A lovely and vibrant copy of this Hugh Thomson illustrated edition.

Austen famously described the heroine of this novel, Emma Woodhouse as “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,” a remark associated with the novel’s psychological subtlety and social irony. Emma, widely regarded as one of the author's most accomplished works, with themes of self-knowledge, social misunderstanding, and class within the carefully observed world of Highbury. Austen reluctantly dedicated Emma to the Prince Regent, later King George IV, despite her private dislike of the future monarch, after receiving pressure through the Prince’s librarian.

This Thomson illustrated edition of Emma, with its richly gilt decorative binding, remains one of the most admired Austen editions of the late Victorian period.