In this 250th anniversary year of Jane Austen’s birth, the Royal Library at Windsor Castle determined to mark the occasion with a small display of its Austen treasures, devised and curated by Elizabeth Clark Ashby, Curator of Books and Manuscripts at Royal Collection Trust. It was timed to coincide with the October half term (24 October–2 November) so that the display might attract as large and diverse an audience as possible and complement a variety of activities planned by our Learning team for schools and families. For a display featuring no more than two copies of Pride and Prejudice, one of Emma, and two volumes of contemporary fashion plates on show amid the splendors of Windsor Castle’s State Apartments, it attracted a lot of attention, including visitors who came to the Castle especially to see the display, encouraged by media publicity. The Royal Library’s home, which it has occupied for nearly 200 years, is immediately adjacent to the State Apartments, and it contains the book collections of monarchs from the Georgian period up to the present day. (For further details, please see the link to our website in endnote 5.) The little glimpses of book-lined walls through the communicating door as we emerged with our exhibition tables were immediately tantalizing to our visitors.
Visitors exploring the display in the State Apartments.
The display sought to convey the story of the Royal Family’s fondness for Jane Austen. The author’s dedication of Emma to the Prince Regent (later King George IV) is a well-known story, but it is less generally appreciated that he was an established fan long before his librarian, James Stanier Clarke, showed the author around the library in Carlton House (the Prince Regent’s London home), in what one can imagine to be a manner reminiscent of Mr. Collins at his finest. Also less well known is Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s enthusiasm, happily recorded in the Queen’s journal (now available online). She was a voracious reader, and her daily records invariably mention what books she was reading, or having read to her, often with some brief review.
The display
Pride and Prejudice. A novel. In three volumes. By the author of “Sense and Sensibility.” 1st ed. London: T. Egerton, 1813. RCIN 1080115-117. (https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/1080115/pride-and-prejudice-a-novel-in-three-volumes-v-1-by-the-author-of-sense-and)
Pride and Prejudice. A novel. By Jane Austen. London: Richard Bentley, 1853. RCIN 1080121. (https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/1080121/pride-and-prejudice)
Costume of the Ladies of Paris. Paris: Pierre La Mésangère, 1817–19. RCIN 1000894. (https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/1000894/costume-of-the-ladies-of-paris-1817-1818-1819)
Copies of Pride and Prejudice, often described as Jane Austen’s most popular novel, can be found in most of the royal residences today. The private houses Sandringham and Balmoral both have sets of the novels, dating to the Victorian era; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother had sets in both London and Windsor; King George V and Queen Mary were presented with a set as a wedding gift by the people of the Isle of Wight in 1893; and the main Royal Library contains both a first and a second edition, as well as the 1853 reprint of Bentley’s Standard Novels edition.
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Pride and Prejudice, 1st edition, 1813. |
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The Royal Library’s first edition is something of a mystery; it was clearly rebound in a very plain cloth binding, devoid of all clues as to its origin apart from the numbers on its spine, which potentially mark it as having once been in the Servants’ Library. Very little is known of this collection, but it is interesting to note that a lot of the Georgian novels still in the Royal Library today have similar numbers on the spine, including our first edition of Emma (see below). Since the only Georgian royal book purchaser we know of who appreciated a good novel was George IV, it is tempting to attribute the acquisition of this first edition to him; he famously had copies of all of Austen’s works in each of his residences.
As has been recorded elsewhere in Persuasions (Peacock), Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were enthusiastic readers of at least two of Jane Austen’s novels. The Queen’s journal records Prince Albert reading Pride and Prejudice to her while she was in bed with the measles in July 1853:
Ly Ely kindly read to me out of the “Talisman” by Sir W. Scott, & Albert also, in the evening began reading to me Miss Austen’s “Pride & Prejudice.” (Queen Victoria’s Journals (QVJ), 25 July 1853)
Very amusing,” “admirably written,” “that interesting & entertaining ‘Pride & Prejudice’”—such were the encomiums that the Queen laid upon the novel (QVJ 25 July, 30 July, 1 August 1853); in 1857 the couple began reading Northanger Abbey, “one of Miss Austen’s admirable novels” (QVJ 7 March 1858). She presumably enjoyed it, as a copy of the first edition was acquired from Bernard Quaritch in 1883, along with a second edition of Pride and Prejudice.1 The culmination of this enthusiasm was the presentation in 1884 of Lord Brabourne’s edition of Jane Austen’s letters (he was the author’s great-nephew), with a fulsome dedication to the Queen: “It was the knowledge that Your Majesty so highly appreciated the works of Jane Austen which emboldened me to ask permission to dedicate to Your Majesty these volumes,” sent by the publisher Richard Bentley (RCIN 1080129-130).
Our 1853 copy of Pride and Prejudice (Gilson 228) once formed part of Prince Albert’s personal library, as can be seen from the color-coded label on the spine, with the number 319. This number refers to the manuscript catalogue of the Prince’s library, where we find that this volume was part of the traditional Bentley set of five, published 1846–53. Sadly, only three volumes from this set survive: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma.2 While we also have a copy of this issue of Pride and Prejudice in its original cover, complete with pages of advertisement for Bentley’s Standard Novels, and a Queen Victoria Royal Library bookplate (RCIN 1080126), we have no indication of when it was acquired, and it is most likely that the prince would have read to his wife out of his own “superior” rebound copy.
| Left, Pride and Prejudice, one of Bentley’s Standard Novels, 1853 issue, owned by Prince Albert. Right, Pride and Prejudice, one of Bentley’s Standard Novels, 1853 issue, in original publishers’ binding. (Click on each image to see a larger version.) |
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Emma: A novel. In three volumes. By the author of “Pride and Prejudice.” 1st ed. London: John Murray, 1816. RCIN 1083626, 1080108-109. https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/1083626/emma-a-novel-in-three-volumes-v-1-by-the-author-of-pride-and-prejudice
Five hundred and fifty ladies: Costume of England [plates from Ackermann’s Repository and La Belle Assemblée]. 1816–26. RCIN 1069880. https://www.rct.uk/collection/search#/1/collection/1069880/five-hundred-and-fifty-ladies-costume-of-england-v-1nbsp-title-taken-from-spine
| The Prince Regent’s dedication copy of Emma, 1st edition (1816). (Click on each image to see a larger version.) |
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With “a heroine whom no one but myself will much like,” Jane Austen’s fourth full novel was published in December 1815 to some critical acclaim. Sir Walter Scott, writing anonymously in the Quarterly Review, said that Pride and Prejudice “attracted, with justice, an attention from the public far superior to what is granted to the ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering-places and circulating libraries” (189). Nor would the attentions of the Prince Regent have been a detriment. While his enjoyment of Jane Austen’s novels is familiar in these circles, it is worth considering in the context of today’s Royal Library, which includes the remains of the Regent’s library at Carlton House, and in the context of the Royal Archives, which contain a significant number of fully itemized bills for the purchase of books for that library. As is well known, Jane Austen met with the Prince Regent’s physician, Dr. Matthew Baillie, while the latter was attending her brother Henry, in London in October 1815. The doctor, recognizing the anonymous yet famous author, informed her that “the Prince was a great admirer of her novels; that he read them often, and kept a set in every one of his residences; . . . and that the Prince had desired Mr. Clarke [James Stanier Clarke], the librarian of Carlton House, to wait upon her” (Austen-Leigh 147).
William Westall’s view of Carlton House, the London home of the Prince Regent (RCIN 922170).
The subsequent visit and benign condescension of Mr. Clarke, as well as the debate over the correct form of the dedication text, are all well known—though I feel that we may have missed a treat. Miss Austen did not, as suggested by the librarian, write “any Historical Romance, illustrative of the History of the august house of Cobourg” (27 March 1816). (Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, to whose service Clarke had recently been appointed, was betrothed to the Prince Regent’s daughter and heir, Princess Charlotte.) We may be grateful, however, for her existing depictions of “an English Clergyman after your fancy,” as Clarke said (?21 December 1815), when we consider Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton, or their more romantic counterparts Messrs. Ferrars, Bertram, and Tilney. This copy of Emma is the only novel by Jane Austen in our collection that we can conclusively identify as having belonged to the Prince Regent. If we turn to the Prince’s book bills, however, we see that he did indeed possess multiple copies of at least Sense and Sensibility (his first copy of which he bought well in advance of official publication) and Pride and Prejudice (one copy of which he ordered bound in “Calf half Extra, [with] Gilt edges” at a cost—13 shillings and sixpence—nearly rivaling the cost of the actual novel—18 shillings).3 His copies of Mansfield Park and of Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were acquired on 13 August 1814 and 27 December 1817, respectively (RA GEO/MAIN/28566, 28605).4 No bill has yet been found for any additional copies of Emma; we must assume that the presentation copy from the author was deemed quite sufficient.
As well as our editions of the novels, the display also included two volumes of contemporary fashion plates, exhibited to illustrate how Jane Austen’s characters might have appeared. Modern audiences are very familiar with the various adaptations for stage and screen, which vary in their costumes from wildly anachronistic (e.g., the 1940 film of Pride and Prejudice, starring Laurence Olivier and Greer Garson, costumed in the voluminous skirts inspired by the film of Gone with the Wind, and indeed the frontispiece from Bentley’s Standard Novels edition) to the carefully researched (the 1995 television adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, or the 2020 film of Emma). These collections of contemporary fashion plates were compiled by Sir William Fraser (1826–98), a politician and noted collector of prints, caricatures, portraits, and objects associated with key figures in history. We used prints from Observateur des modes and Le Journal des Dames to accompany Pride and Prejudice, and from Ackermann’s Repository and La Belle Assemblée to accompany Emma. They offer visual engagement—something that might appeal to a younger audience, or might even simply allow any visitor to visualize Jane Austen’s characters, when confronted with hard text.
Pride and Prejudice, one of Bentley’s Standard Novels, 1853 issue, title page and frontispiece.
(Click here to see a larger version.)
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Left, Chapeau et Pantalon à la Russe (1817); Right, Walking dress (1818). |
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For a small show, containing five titles, our display had a wider than expected positive impact upon our visitors and their enjoyment of their day, demonstrating once more (as if it were in doubt) the enduring appeal of Jane Austen and, more broadly, the public’s interest in books and royal readers. We would hope to encourage this further in the future with similar events, as well as ongoing work on online offerings and social media, and our evolving program of exhibitions at The King’s Galleries in London and Edinburgh.5
NOTES
1For the first edition of Northanger Abbey acquired from Bernard Quaritch in 1883, see RCIN 1080111-114; for this second edition of Pride and Prejudice acquired from Bernard Quaritch, see RCIN 1080118-120.
2The identification number for the catalogue of Prince Albert’s library is RCIN 1028951; the three surviving volumes from this set are Sense and Sensibility (RCIN 1042439), Pride and Prejudice (RCIN 1080121), and Emma (RCIN 1080110).
3For the itemized bills, see the online catalogue of the Royal Archives: ra.rct.uk. For the bill for the Prince Regent’s first copy of Sense and Sensibility see RA GEO/MAIN/28514; for the bills for Pride and Prejudice and for binding, see RA GEO/MAIN/28539, 28549, 28578.
4For the bills for Mansfield Park (13 August 1814) and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion (27 December 1817), see RA GEO/MAIN/28566, 28605.
5For further information about the Royal Library and its collections, please see the pages on our website: https://www.rct.uk/collection/stories/windsor-castles-royal-library. For information on how to visit Windsor Castle, please see our website: rct.uk/visit/windsor-castle.
