Pride and Prejudice | Beautiful Editions & Collector’s Guide

Publishing history

• First appearance (1813). Pride and Prejudice was first published on 28 January 1813 in three volumes by T. Egerton of Whitehall. The first edition sold briskly enough to warrant a second later that year and a third in 1817. Many novels of the day were published in parts because books were expensive to buy outright, and most middle-class accessed them through subscription-based circulating libraries. Libraries preferred multiple volume books because they could lend them to more customers at once. You can see this three-volume structure reflected in the book with Volume I (chapters 1-23) covering first impressions and ending with a status shift with Charlotte's sudden engagement. Vol II (chapters 24-42) raises the stakes and shifts the conflict from external misunderstandings to Elizabeth's internal transformation, ending with a major emotional reversal. And Vol III of course resolves the story and brings our happy ending.
• Anonymity (‘by a Lady'). Like many women authors of the time, Jane published anonymously and the original title page simply read “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility.” Sense and Sensibility had previously appeared in 1811 under the byline “By a Lady”. Austen remained publicly anonymous throughout her life. Sadly, she never actually saw her name on a title page – it didn't appear on until after her death in 1817, when her brother Henry revealed her authorship in a biographical notice prefacing Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
• Illustrations. Early illustrated Austen editions were typically limited to a frontispiece or two, and often “Victorianised” the Regency setting. In the 1890s illustration boom, styles shifted toward more period-accurate visual worlds, cementing the public image of Austen's world and shaping popular imagination in ways later comparable to film/TV adaptations. Charles Brock is particularly renowned for this – he and his illustrator brother Henry Brock collected period artefacts and posed models in accurate dress and settings to ensure accuracy. In fact, he was asked to illustrate the novel multiple times – the 1895 Macmillan edition includes 40 pen and ink illustrations, the 1898 Dent 10-volume colour set – the first to have colour illustrations – was illustrated by him and his brother with 6 plates per volume (Henry did the two Pride and Prejudice volumes) , the 1907-1909 English Idylls series (24 watercolours per volume and a decorated title page), an uncommon 1913 Cassell edition with 4 colour plates, and the 1932 Nelson edition which included 8 new ink drawings by Charles.