Gaskell

1858 · réf. 5213 — London United Kingdom: Smith Elder and Co. 1858. hardcover. Good. N/A. Publication: London Smith Elder and Co. 1858 Formatting: 8vo pp. xi 486. Condition Report: Good. The original dark green publisher’s cloth is largely intact though exhibiting standard signs of age including moderate bumping to the corners and rubbing along the joints alongside minor fraying at the spine’s head and tail. The blind-stamped boards remain structurally sound and the gilt lettering to the spine is somewhat dulled but perfectly legible. Internally the front free endpaper is notably absent slightly straining the front inner hinge though the text block itself remains cohesive. The pages display scattered light foxing most prominent around the frontispiece and title page due to natural offsetting from the tissue guard with general mild age-toning throughout. Despite the missing preliminary leaf and external wear it remains a resilient readable example. Catalogue Note: This 1858 printing represents the Fourth Edition of Elizabeth Gaskell's seminal biography of her close friend Charlotte Brontë. Crucially this edition marks the first time the work was condensed and issued as a single accessible volume following the controversial two-volume first edition published the year prior. The volume is beautifully illustrated with an engraved frontispiece portrait of Brontë retaining its original tissue guard and a finely detailed vignette of Haworth Parsonage adorning the title page. A factual contemporary ownership signature reading "Marg't O. Johnson" is present on the half-title page. While Gaskell's landmark biography was a commercial success and went through numerous Victorian reprints encountering this specific first single-volume edition in its original publisher's cloth without modern restoration is increasingly uncommon on the open market. Written at the behest of Patrick Brontë following his daughter's tragic and untimely passing Elizabeth Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë stands as one of the most celebrated and pioneering literary biographies of the nineteenth century. Gaskell an esteemed novelist in her own right offers a profoundly empathetic and intimate portrait of Charlotte meticulously charting her bleak but intensely creative upbringing her fiercely guarded privacy and her extraordinary ascent to global literary stardom with the publication of Jane Eyre. Drawing upon personal correspondence and first-hand accounts Gaskell cemented the enduring mythos of the Brontë sisters and the rugged romantic isolation of the Haworth Parsonage for all subsequent generations. Smith, Elder and Co. hardcover