Charlotte Brontë (as 'Currer Bell') First Editions

• Jane Eyre — 1847 · Smith, Elder & Co.Three volumes, published 19 October 1847 in a small edition. The title page reads 'Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell' (this wording appears in the first and subsequent early editions, so it is not itself a distinguishing point). The genuine first-issue points are physical and textual: half-titles present in each volume, and the ABSENCE of both the preface and the dedication to W. M. Thackeray.…. The UK three-decker is the true first. The clearest distinguishing point from the second edition is the absence of any preface and of the dedication to Thackeray, both of which were added in the second edition (1848). Presence of the half-titles is also expected in a clean first. Later single-volume editions, and any copy carrying the Thackeray dedication or the 1848 preface, are not the 1847 first edition.
• Shirley — 1849 · Smith, Elder & Co.Three volumes, 'A Tale. By Currer Bell', London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1849 (published 26 October 1849). The first edition was issued WITHOUT half-titles. Volume I carries a 16-page advertisement catalogue dated September 1849; volume III ends with a few leaves of notices (including reviews and an advertisement for the third edition of Jane Eyre). References: Sadleir 348; Wise 6; Smith 5; Parrish p. 93. Original cloth. The London Smith, Elder & Co. 1849 three-decker is the true first edition. The Harper & Brothers New York 1850 first American edition is secondary. Later one-volume reprints are not the first edition.
• Villette — 1853 · Smith, Elder & Co.Three volumes, octavo, 'by Currer Bell', London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1853, printed by Stewart and Murray. The first edition was issued WITHOUT half-titles; the publisher's advertisement catalogue, when present, is dated January 1853 and bound at the end of volume one (some copies lack the catalogue). Standard collation: vol. I [iv], 324; vol. II [iv], 319; vol. III [iv], 350. Original cloth. The London Smith, Elder & Co. 1853 three-decker is the true first edition. The Harper & Brothers New York 1853 edition is the first American and is secondary. Later one-volume reprints are not the first edition.
• The Professor — 1857 · Smith, Elder, LondonLondon: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857; two volumes, 8vo, published under the pseudonym Currer Bell. Half-titles are present in both volumes and are called for. Publisher's advertisements for Brontë's works appear at the end of both volumes, and a publisher's catalogue at the end of volume 2 is dated June 1857 — the June 1857 dating is the recorded first state of the ads. In the original binding: publisher's…. Smith, Elder, London, 1857 is the true first and the census claim stands. Harper & Brothers, New York, published the first American edition the same year, 1857; it is a separately collected edition worth naming, but it follows the London printing and is not the true first. The book's oddity is genuine and the census states it correctly: The Professor was the first novel Charlotte completed and submitted — Smith,…. No book club edition is documented for an 1857 two-decker; the risk is the ordinary Victorian one. Smith, Elder's own later printings and the cheap collected and uniform editions of Charlotte Brontë's works are the common substitutes, and the Harper New York 1857 is frequently offered simply as 'first edition 1857' without the qualifier 'first American'. Copies rebound out of the original purple cloth lose the….

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