Pride and Prejudice. by AUSTEN, Jane - 1894

London: George Allen,, 1894. With a Preface by George Saintsbury and illustrations by Hugh Thomson. Octavo. Original dark green cloth, spine and front cover elaborately gilt-blocked with peacock design, dark green endpapers, gilt edges. Frontispiece with tissue-guard and 160 line-drawings by Hugh Thomson. Spine ends very lightly bumped, tiny markings to rear cover, small mark to rear endpaper, some minor foxing to contents. A very good copy. First Thomson edition, and the first edition to feature illustrations accompanying the text; Bentley's 1833 edition and subsequent printings had featured only a frontispiece. Thomson's "light touch and feeling for period manners provide a charming and accessible gloss to the author's work" (ODNB). The exquisite gilt peacock design on the front cover has led to this work being known as the "peacock edition", and it is one of the most striking examples of late-Victorian pictorial cloth.