Wednesday 9 November 2005

at last!

I hadn't intended to write here today, but I have to tell you how happy I am this morning - the Mansfield Park edition has arrived! I have a copy at last and it's beautiful. I feel very very proud to have been a small part of its production. Hurray for Cambridge and Jane Austen! Photos to follow later today.

Ok, home now, here's pictures. I know you're dying to see them.



Dust jacket on! It's NOT this nasty magenta / lilac colour, more like cherry / blush.


Dust jacket off!

(I seem to be having difficulty holding the camera still lately.)


Title page and frontispiece!
The frontispiece is the only thing I'm a bit disappointed about - they have run it horizontally across the page not sideways which would have meant it could be printed larger and you'd be able to see all the funny details. Also I thought they were going to print the original full colour version. Still, it makes a very nice corrective change from the usual JA frontispieces, which are generally a Regency fashion plate, or a carriage, or a view of Bath or a country house. This one is a Cruikshank plate showing a middle-class family having a full-dress meltdown while they try to pack their teenage son's trunk preparatory to him going off with the Navy. The boy's trunk is labelled "Mastr Willm Blockhead HM Ship Hellfire, West India Station." Another print from the same series can be seen here in the National Maritime Museum online collection.


Random page with variants listed at the bottom.


My little essay about Elizabeth Inchbald, who wrote Lovers' Vows


One or two of the 17,466 footnotes.

So there you go! 738 pages! It smells nice too.

9 comments:

Phantom Scribbler said...

Ooo, I want to see...

Unknown said...

Congratulations! Great news!

Ampersand Duck said...

Oh, it's such a lovely feeling! Congratulations!

JM said...

awesome!

Ampersand Duck said...

So pretty! I bet you can still snuffle the inky smell too.

eqeer (sounds like a good description for Baz's new relationship)

halloweenlover said...

Congratulations! I've been looking for a good collection to purchase of Jane Austen's, I am going to look into these now!

lucy tartan said...

These are priced for libraries, I'm afraid - this one is listed on amazon at $120 US. And there are nine or ten volums in the edition. Argh. They will put out a more affordable paperback edition sometime, though. I don't know how long you can hang on.
Oxford University Press had a sale recently - it may be still going - and a set of the Oxford Edition might be a pretty good deal about now.

R.H. said...

I know how much this would mean to you, so I'm glad. I haven't seen your contribution of course but you'll have done an excellent job. Congratulations.

Jellyfish said...

I can't believe you have such an awesome real life job/achievment. Colour me highly impressed, and rather jealous, actually.