The Elusive Original

Pride and Prejudice was first published in 1813, in London, in three volumes. At that time novels were often published in multiple volumes. Volume one might end on a horrific cliff-hanger, and leave the reader in suspense until they got their hands on volume two. Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice for this format, so it’s compelling as an “original” form. But even as early as 1832, publishers were re-imagining the text.

This is the Beinecke’s copy of the first (1813) edition—one of the few editions Austen would have seen in her lifetime.

The original set of three volumes becomes two volumes in 1832.

The 1832 Philadelphia edition has exactly the same text as the 1813 version, but it’s quite a different book. For one thing, the printing is not as neat. For another, the publishers (Carey & Lea) have decided to split the book into two volumes rather than three. This changes how a reader interacts with the book: when they’re forced to wait. But most strikingly, the publishers have changed the name of the book! Pride and Prejudice instead goes under the name of its heroine and is fully titled Elizabeth Bennet: or Pride and Prejudice. The publishers might have done this to fit Pride and Prejudice into a genre: to make it align more clearly with popular English books like Pamela, Camilla, and even Emma, all titled with their main characters’ names.

Pride and Prejudice was written for a particular physical format, but even early in its history its physicality was seen as something flexible. The book early American readers might have encountered was less pristine—less “classic”—but perhaps more accessible.

Unlike early English editions, the Beinecke’s 1832 Philadelphia edition doesn't look like a luxury item. Its pages are discolored and warped at the edges. Its binding is nothing fancy. It is most likely a publisher’s binding, meant to be replaced by the buyer.

Page of inserted advertisements at the beginning of the 1832 edition. An early purchaser has declared his ownership of the book, dwarfing Elizabeth Bennet’s name with his own.

At the beginning and end of the book, where the more formally re-bound copies have the decency to begin and end, this copy instead inserts a page of advertisements at the front as seen above, and an entire publisher’s catalog (with pages of a different size) sewn into the binding in the back as seen below. You can tell which advertisements have been read, based on which pages in the catalog are split. It appears that the reader was interested in Sir Walter Scott’s new books, but scorned classical literature and chemistry.

Publisher's catalog sewn into the end of the 1832 edition.