[together with:] Agnes Grey.
Wuthering Heights; [together with:] Agnes Grey.
Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847.
First edition. 3 volumes, duodecimo (187 x 115 mm). Uniformly bound by Riviere in early twentieth century blue half morocco with raised bands and elaborate gilt floral motif The two volumes of Wuthering Heights generally clean with only occasional marginal spotting. Agnes Grey title page with repairs to the gutter and it and the first section somewhat finger-marked. Occasional marginal finger-marking throughout that volume. Some page edges uncut and bound slightly shorter than others. The bindings in near fine condition with just a little wear to tips of the corners. A very good set.
First edition of the novel that "remains consistently among the top three best-selling of all classic novels in the English language". Published as part of a three-decker with Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey making up the third volume, Wuthering Heights was rushed into the shops on 4 December 1847, but attracted only hostile and uncomprehending reviews.
Sales were apparently not even of an order to justify any payment to either author, who had been required by Newby to advance £50 to fund its publication. Most copies ended up in the circulating libraries, where volumes where loaned out singly, and were presumably sold off afterwards into the second-hand trade as two distinct titles. As a result, complete sets are extremely rare to market. Fit to be ranked with Frankenstein and Pride and Prejudice as among the most desirable and collectable 19th-century novels, in commerce Wuthering Heights is much the rarest of the three.
Parrish 85; Sadleir 350; Smith/Heritage, pp. 60-63.
Stock ID: 43572
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