Pride and Prejudice. Illustrated by Hugh Thomson. With a Preface by George Saintsbury. London: George Allen, 1895. First Edition, Second Issue. Pp xxvii, 476, all edges in gilt. Publisher’s green cloth boards with spectacular gilt peacock design to upper board and spine. Paper silhouettes pasted to front endpapers with pen & ink drawings pasted to second endpapers; overall a pleasing copy of this iconic edition.

The renowned “Peacock Edition” of Austen’s classic, which is generally considered to be the finest illustrated interpretation of Jane Austen’s popular novel and is presented in one of the most lavish and aesthetically pleasing pictorial gilt bindings of the period

Hugh Thompson was an Irish Illustrator born at Coleraine near Derry. He created 160 line drawings to produce this the first and still finest illustrated edition of Austen’s second novel. The George Allen editions, published between 1894 and 1906 are the most desirable copies of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ published other than the original edition of 1813.

The success of Allen’s ” Peacock Edition “ launched Thompson’s career as a first class and prominent illustrator who is best known for his pen-and-ink illustrations of works by authors Charles Dickens and J. M. Barrie among others.