Jane Austen

Beautifully illustrated first trade edition of Jane Austen's seminal work.

• Jane Austen (English).
• Illustrated by Hugh Thomson with the plates on tissue and tipped in.
• London: George Allen Ruskin House 156 Charing Cross Road, [1894].
• xxvii, [1], 476, [1] pp. 1 vols.
• 4to.
• Printed at the Chiswick Press.
• Original blue gilt cloth, with peacock design, a.e.g.
• Bookplate of Edward Marsh (1873-1952).

In the late 1880s and through the ’90s, a remarkable illustrator made his appearance on the London scene: Hugh Thomson (1860-1920), perhaps the pre-eminent representative of what has come to be known as ‘the Wig and Powder School’ of English illustration. Thomson’s delicate pen drawings of English life lent themselves perfectly to the new technique of photo-engraving (he was a pioneer of the genre), and he was soon in popular demand for illustrations of the novels of Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, Mrs. Gaskell, Charles Reade, as well as for contemporaries like Austin Dobson. His influence on contemporary illustrators was felt keenly for many years, and can be seen in the work of Charles E. Brock and others of the ‘school.’

Edward Marsh