First Editions

This post on BookRide provides very interesting information about the current value of a first edition of Wuthering Heights/Agnes Grey :

[BRONTE, Emily and Anne]. WUTHERING HEIGHTS. A Novel. By Ellis Bell (with) Agnes Grey. A Novel, by Acton Bell. London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847. 3 volumes.
Current Selling Prices
$120,000-$250,000 /£65,000-£130,000

CLASSIC LITERATURE
The rarest of all 19th century classics. The publishers, finding that Wuthering Heights did not contain enough material to form the customary “three-decker,” added Agnes Grey to make the third volume. According to a letter from her sister Charlotte Bronte to W. S. Williams, of the firm of Smith, Elder and Company, “Mr. Newby undertook first to print 350 copies of Wuthering Heights, but he afterwards declared he only had printed 250.” Charlotte also later recalled that the 'immature but very real powers' of Wuthering Heights were 'scarcely recognised' at the time, although several critics acknowledged its 'great promise'. Thomas Cautley Newby was notorious for his exploitation of young authors and made very little effort to advertise the work. Bastard.

VALUE? I doubt a copy will turn up online. It is possible by some freak a copy could turn up on ebay - as Cadillac Jack says 'anything can be anywhere'. One of those books that would strain the powers of even the most confirmed overpricer. 3 copies have shown at auction in the last 35 years, none nice. At a terrestrial auction a copy made $216,000 late last year against an estimate of $8000 - $12000 (where do they get these guys?) It was described thus : 'Some marginal repairs and repaired tears mostly to inner margins. Early 20th-century green straight grain morocco gilt. FIRST EDITION, volumes 1 and 2 comprise Wuthering Heights, volume 3 contains Agnes Gray. OF GREAT RARITY, IN ANY CONDITION.' [Want level/High]

The British Library copy pictured above (many thanks) is in the original cloth, the most desirable state and almost occult in its rarity. The 1848 US is comparatively plentiful and can command as much as $10K. The LEC 1993 edition illustrated by the great erotic painter Balthus is one of the most desirable books from that press and can make $5000. 300 only were printed. One of the most valuable works of 19th Century literature, only surpasses by the freakish 1865 Alice and the poetry pamphlet by Poe 'Tamerlane'. Frankenstein does not compare in status , rarity or price. Jane Austen is not in the same league cash wise and sister Charlotte's Jane Eyre also from 1847 is worth about a third of Emily's masterpiece.

The BookClub also offers information on a first edition of Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

(BRONTË, Anne). The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. By Acton Bell. London: T. C. Newby, 1848. Three volumes. Octavo, contemporary or near-contemporary full blue cloth. Housed in custom slipcase. $45,000.

Exceptionally rare first edition, first issue, of the only separate publication by Anne Bronte.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Books, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights