Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

The 1848 Smith, Elder reissue is the trap, and it is a subtle one. After Jane Eyre made 'Currer Bell' famous, Smith, Elder bought the 961 unsold copies, sheets and cases from Aylott and Jones in September 1848 and put them out in October 1848 with a cancel title page — and that cancel title is still dated 1846. A copy in period olive cloth, dated 1846, reading Smith, Elder on the title is therefore the second issue, and it is what nearly every survivor is. Only 39 copies went out under the Aylott and Jones title: roughly fourteen to reviewers, two sold at retail (the famous figure), the balance given away by Charlotte to authors she admired; dealers describe the first issue as virtually unprocurable, with something on the order of ten copies traced. The '1846' on the title page is thus necessary and nowhere near sufficient — read the publisher's name, not the date.