Lot 78: [BRONTË, Charlotte (1816-1855)]. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder, 1847.

[BRONTË, Charlotte (1816-1855)]. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder, 1847.

3 volumes, 8° (198 x 118mm). Half-title in each vol. and advertisements dated June, 1847, at end of vol. I. (Some spotting, the majority marginal, but affecting text of first three chapters of vol. I, staining to quire R in vol. III, occasional finger-soiling and small light waterstains, half-title to vol. III tipped onto front endpaper.) Original brown fine-ribbed cloth by Westleys and Clark with their ticket in vol. I, covers with trellis-like borders, gilt-lettered spines, yellow endpapers (spines rubbed and repaired at head and foot, corners rubbed, some splits to inner hinges, front inner hinge of vol. I entirely split from text block, some repairs to endpapers), later cloth box. Provenance: E.M. George (faded inscription at head of first text leaf in each vol, giving his address at Pound Road, Aylsham) -- Paula Fentress Peyraud (1947-2008; sale Bloomsbury New York, 6 May 2009, lot 168).

FIRST EDITION of Charlotte Brontë's story of a young, plain-looking governess who falls in love with her employer, Rochester, unaware that he keeps a dangerous, mad wife hidden away on the uppermost floor of his country house. The assumed name of Bell, shared with her sisters, was the midddle name of her future husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had arrived in Haworth in May 1845 as her father's curate. Published at 31s. 6d. on 19 October, 1847, in an edition of 500 copies, her novel followed the unsuccessful publication of Poems by the three sisters in May 1846, and the rejection of her first novel The Professor. It was her greatest work, and the first Brontë novel to appear in print. In the second edition of January 1848, the name Currer Bell was given as that of the author and no longer just the editor of the book. Smith 2; Block p. 28; Sadleir I, 346; Wise p. 16; Wolff I, 826. (3)

DARWIN, Charles (1809-1882). Journal
Est. £3,000 - £5,000
($4,743 - $7,905)