Five first-edition Jane Austen novels have sold for a total of more than £181,000 at auction.
The books went under the hammer at Dominic Winter Auctions in Cirencester, with Pride and Prejudice the most popular, selling for £92,000.
They were put up for auction by the daughter of a UK-based private collector who bought them for about £5,000 in the 1970s and 1980s.
Auctioneer Chris Albury said he was "absolutely delighted" with the result.
The copy of Pride and Prejudice is one of about 1,500 copies which were published in 1813.
The rarest of the five books on offer was Sense and Sensibility, as fewer than 1,000 were printed when it was first published anonymously in 1811.
It attracted the second-highest successful bid of £62,000, with Emma, published in 1816, reaching £12,800.
Mansfield Park sold for £8,400 and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion for £6,400.
Who was Jane Austen?
- Born on 16 December 1775 in the Hampshire village of Steventon, where her father was the local clergyman
- Began writing as a teenager and published Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility based on her observations of middle and upper-class Regency England
- Lived in Bath from 1801 before moving to Southampton and then the Hampshire village of Chawton after her father died
- Her books were published anonymously during her lifetime
- Died in Winchester in 1817 at the age of 41 and was buried in the cathedral
- Persuasion and Northanger Abbey were published posthumously and a final novel was left incomplete.
Mr Albury said the novels went to four different buyers who attended in person or on the phone, with no internet bidders successful.
"It may be some time before we see as good copies of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice again so these will live in the memory for a long time.
"The consensus among those who watched and participated was that these were all strong prices," he added.
Mr Albury said that the seller had decided to put the books up for auction to "let others get the pleasure from them and use the money for new projects and plans".
"She was a great fan of Jane Austen but these were the only rare books she ever bought and they would be brought out every now and then, treated carefully by the family, and then put back in the bookcase," he added.
Latest Stories
-
5 dead, over 14 injured in gory accident near Obuasi
7 mins -
Cleaner to stand trial over Cashier’s death at Twumasiwaa Hospital
26 mins -
Global financial institutions call for comprehensive treaty to end plastic pollution
37 mins -
Electoral processes, ethnoreligious cleavages threats to Ghana’s 2024 election – WANEP
37 mins -
Harnessing intuition, reasoning, and memory to navigate the AI age
1 hour -
Azumah Nelson Sports Complex: Gov’t advised to terminate project contract
1 hour -
Dumsor will be a thing of the past soon – Bawumia assures
1 hour -
Why do you always run to the media? – EC quizzes IMANI
2 hours -
Francis Doku charges government to market traditional festivals
2 hours -
Ghana records an average of 9,900 snakebites annually
2 hours -
Fella Makafui sets record straight on relationship with D-Black
2 hours -
CEGENSA celebrates mentors for nurturing UG’s upcoming female leaders in academia
2 hours -
Dr. Bawumia begins Eastern regional tour with religious leaders in Akropong
2 hours -
Akosombo Dam Spillage: Would victims have been ignored if they were in swing constituencies – Ablakwa fumes
2 hours -
Have capacity to influence policy – former MiDA boss to engineers
2 hours