ELIZABETH BENNET; OR, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Philadelphia: Carey & Lea, 1832. First printing. Near fine.. First US edition in a stunning fine art binding by the acclaimed Argentinian design bookbinder Sol Rébora. Austen's most beloved novel is simultaneously a unique production of profound artistic confidence and an entertaining popular love story: it builds on a long-established tradition of English courtship novels in conversation with many women authors before her like Frances Burney (from whose book CECILIA Austen may have borrowed the very phrase "pride and prejudice"). Austen admitted in a letter that she thought her book's heroine, Elizabeth Bennett, "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print" (29 January 1813) - and generations of readers have agreed with her. First published in 1813 in three volumes, this is the first edition to appear in the United States, published in two volumes by Carey & Lea in an edition of only 750 copies.

Sol Rébora is an internationally recognized design bookbinder based in Buenos Aires. Her works embody a minimalistic elegance that is nevertheless subtly complex, as in the carefully structured multiple layers used here. They are not only visually stunning, but supremely tactile. From Rèbora's artist statement: "The cloth texture is achieved using silk with a patterned design that evokes the aesthetic of the time period in which the original edition was produced, creating a visual connection with antique paper. This design also appeals to the collective memory of how custom bindings from the early 19th century might have appeared, complete with deep-relief hot-stamping impressions." A magnificent, unique copy of an Austen first. Two 12mo volumes, 6.75'' x 4.25'' each. Modern full peach design binding by Sol Rébora in Can Can structure with one layer of cotton cloth and two layers of Japanese paper, each element hand-painted with acrylics and textured with a patterned design impressed with deep-relief hot-stamping from silk; spines and boards stamped in dark grey. Cotton and abaca handmade paper peach endpapers. Publisher's catalogue bound at front of Vol. I. 199, [1]; 209, [1] pages. Vol. I with early pencil inscription of the Portsmouth Athenaeum to fly leaf; early newspaper clipping on "Jane Austen's Genius" archivally tipped onto rear fly leaf. Some browning, light staining to text block, a few early marginal pencil notes. Bright.