[Emma]
AUSTEN, Jane
The Text based on Collation of the Early Editions by R.W. Chapman. With Notes Indexes and Illustrations from contemporary Sources. Volume IV. Third Edition [Third Impression; this volume only].
BRIGHT, CLEAN COPY
Published: Clarendon Press Oxford, [1946]
Stock code: 9273
Price: £42.00
8vo., Third Edition, Third Impression, with frontispiece, 9 plates and several pages of facsimiles in the text; original series binding of green cloth, gilt back, a very good, bright, clean copy.
Chapman's masterly edition of the novels was first published in a limited edition of five volumes in 1923. It was the first based on carefully collated texts and the first to feature illustrations from contemporary sources. Demand far outstripped the limited audience and a 'second edition' (in reality a second printing on cheaper stock) was issued in 1926. A 'third edition' (as here) was published in 1933, but since it is produced from the original plates it is still technically a third printing. This third edition, several times re-issued, preserves the three-volume structure of the first edition of 1816, adding frontispieces to each volume together with the other plates and facsimiles, and Chapman's extensive notes and explanatory articles. See Gilson, E150.