Hello booklovers. Today I’d like to share with you two very different, but equally gorgeous,
approaches to presenting Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride and Prejudice with letters and other
ephemera that you can actually pull out and read to help immerse yourself in the setting and story.
I have to confess that these types of books are a particular collecting focus of mine because
I’m fascinated by the ways that tactile elements are incorporated into print media – it’s something
that still can’t yet be replicated by electronic books.
Let’s start with this edition, which is part
of the Marjolein Bastin classics series. This series also includes Emma by Jane Austen, as well as
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, presented in the same style. Marjolein is a highly regarded Dutch
nature artist also known as the creator of ‘Vera the Mouse’ and Hallmark’s Nature Sketchbook line.
This particular book design was in fact originally published in Germany in 2018, and has just been
released in English. It’s one of the books I included in my most anticipated list for 2021.
The book is bound in linen-textured paper, the flowers on the cover are embossed,
and there are points of gold foiling scatter across the design -
it’s a beautifully tactile publication. The pages are securely bound and smyth-sewn,
and a convenient scarlet ribbon bookmark has been bound into the spine as well.
The books in this series are beautifully brought to life
with Marjolein’s delightful nature illustrations and decorative chapter capitals throughout.
These simple watercolor illustrations really lovingly capture the beauty of nature,
with flowers and butterflies and leaves and bees frolicking through on almost every page.
It absolutely brings to mind the idea of an old book your grandmother might have lovingly filled with pressed flowers.
The pages are medium weight, and it’s a very readable layout and size.
But of course, the really special feature of this edition is all the fun removable ephemera
that comes with the book. I try not to show absolutely every part of a book in my reviews, because I think
if you buy it yourself it’s nice to have a few surprises to look forward to, but just so you know
there are ten removeable pieces included with the book, and I’ll show you here some of my favorites.
These pieces of ephemera are loose and have been slipped in between pages by hand,
so it's nice to know that when they appear they've been quite thoughtfully placed in the book
– the dance card, for example, is inserted during a dance scene, and you'll find the letter exactly
where it occurs in the story as well. You can tell that each piece has been carefully chosen
to make sure it will help transport you to Regency England where the story is set.
The other edition I’d like to review today is the “letters” edition of Pride and Prejudice curated by
Barbara Heller – this is one I included in my best of 2020 review. This is another incredibly special edition
that includes 19 removable pieces of correspondence between the characters of the novel.
And all of these pieces are reproductions of actual hand-written letters - I’ll explain how they were made in a moment.
First of all, this one has quite an interesting binding.
The cover is paper, with lovely gilded writing and peacock feathers featuring prominently in the design.
Internally, each page section is divided with a thin piece of board, and this is so the whole book can
sit neatly in a shelf without warping due to the weight of the many letters that are slipped inside
special sleeves bound throughout the text block. The endpapers feature a pretty peacock pattern
which harks back to a very famous peacock binding of Pride and Prejudice from 1894 designed by
Hugh Thomson, who was one of the most popular Victorian illustrators of his time. The pages are quite thin –
almost like bible paper weight - and the text is relatively small – I’ll just show a very
quick comparison here of the text of the two editions so you can see what I mean.
But really the key feature of this edition is the letters it contains, and the letters themselves
are actually printed on quite sturdy heavy-weight paper that has even been artificially aged.
Letters are such an important part of the Pride and Prejudice novel,
and interestingly most scholars agree that the manuscript actually originated as an apostolary
and interestingly most scholars agree that the manuscript actually originated as an epistolary novel called First Impressions, that was composed entirely of letters between the characters.
so an edition like this with all the letters in it is really a perfect fit for the novel.
The letters themselves have been rendered by professional calligraphers at the
New York Society of Scribes. Each letter has been prepared with different handwriting according to its author,
which as far as possible lines up with the descriptions in the novel itself.
For example, Miss Bingley lauds Darcy for his even handwriting, while Caroline Bingley’s writing
is described as very flowing. But Heller has gone much further than this in her search for authenticity.
Honestly, everything in the letters is incredibly carefully considered.
The texts include occasional flaws so that they resemble letters written by real people,
and they are even accurately folded for the time period. Since letters at the time weren’t usually
sent in envelopes, they were specially folded in a way that protected the contents and were
traditionally sealed with wax. You can see lots of little period details - there is a 'medial s' -
which are those s's that look like f's - and that actually has its own fascinating history that
I'll include in the description box rather than heading off on a tangent here. You have the
sender’s postmaster and the arrival stamp, and even the cost which was
based on how far the letter had to travel and was originally paid by the recipient not the sender.
Heller spent several months at the Morgan Library in New York City going through
its archive of English correspondence from this time period to select handwriting
examples that best captured the essence of different characters. For example, Mr. Darcy's handwriting
is based on a series of letters from the Duke of Kent (Queen Victoria's father)
written to General Frederick Weatherall. And the writing of Mr Gardiner, the Bennet sisters' uncle,
is based on the hand of Robert Southey, poet laureate of England for 20 years. And our heroine,
Elizabeth Bennet’s handwriting, well, that’s quite fittingly drawn from Jane Austen's own handwritten letters.
Because only some of the letters appear in the novel in their entirety,
Heller has also written original material to flesh out those that are only provided in extract,
or whose contents were paraphrased in the text. I think her painstaking work here really shines,
as the letters really do reflect the personality of the characters,
and the writing is believably part of an Austen novel.
All in all, it’s a fascinating addition to an Austen collection, and offers new and
interesting elements to entice you into re-reading a classic. And if you love this edition,
you'll be as thrilled as I was to hear that Barbara is apparently working on a similar lettered edition
of Little Women. Now i've added links below in the description box of the editions in this video
along with the rest of the Marjolein Bastin series series if you're interested in tracking down some copies -
and, as always, there's more information on my website as well. Thank you for watching, and if
you're interested in finding more beautiful books that you can afford to fill your own library with,
please do subscribe and hit the notification bell - because I'm a bit random on when I post
and notifications are really the best way to see when I've got something new to share.
Now, I know a lot of people have several copies of Pride and Prejudice so you're definitely
invited to share your favorite editions in the comments. And please also do let me know if you'd
be interested in me making a list of all the books I have in my collection with these sorts
of removable ephemera, as I'm happy to do that if there's some interest as well.
'Til next time, bye!