1892 Scarce Edition - Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë

An attractive and very scarce late-Victorian Belfast edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, handsomely presented in richly gilt-decorated blue cloth and introduced by noted Brontë scholar Clement K. Shorter.

Author: Charlotte Brontë. Introduction by Clement K. Shorter.
Title: Jane Eyre: An Autobiography.
Publisher: Belfast, Olley & Co., Limited, [c. 1892]. Printed at The Walter Scott Press, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Edition: Scarce undated late-Victorian edition, issued in Olley & Co.’s “2/6 Library.”
Language: Text in English.
Pages: xviii, 440 pages + publisher’s catalogue.
Size: 7.5 x 5 inches.
Binding: Very good original publisher’s deep blue cloth, beautifully decorated on the upper board and spine with elaborate gilt floral designs, gilt titles, and triple gilt rules. Light rubbing and minor wear to the extremities, with gentle traces of age and handling. Binding remains firm and attractive. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good, complete, and firmly bound. Pages remain generally clean and well preserved, with scattered light foxing, somewhat more noticeable to the preliminary and terminal leaves. Contemporary presentation inscription to the front free endpaper: “Annie M. West, with much love from her Aunt Isabella.” Publisher’s advertisements bound at rear.

Estimate: USD 300–350.

The book: This uncommon Belfast edition of Jane Eyre presents Charlotte Brontë’s enduring 1847 novel with an introductory essay by Clement K. Shorter, an important early Brontë scholar, collector, and later author of Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle. The elegant original cloth, with its large gilt floral spray and restrained typography, makes this an especially pleasing example of late-Victorian decorative book production.

The author: Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) was an English novelist and poet whose Jane Eyre became one of the defining novels of the Victorian era. First published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell, its combination of Gothic atmosphere, psychological intensity, social criticism, and a fiercely independent heroine established Brontë as one of the major figures of nineteenth-century English literature.