First Edition Jane Austen novels sell for thousands

Five first-edition novels by Jane Austen from the early 19th century have sold for a total of £181,000 in a recent sale at a Cotswolds auction house.

The five lots were purchased during the 1970s and 1980s for under £5,000. An edition of Pride and Prejudice, first published in 1813 and one of the approximately 1,500 copies that were originally printed, sold for £92,000 in the sale at Dominic Winter Auctions in Cirencester.

The rarest book in the collection was a copy of Sense and Sensibility, first published anonymously in 1811 with just 1,000 printed. The book sold for £62,000.

The other titles in the sale were Emma, published in 1816, which sold for £12,800; Mansfield Park, which sold for £8,400; and Northanger Abbey and Persuasion selling for £6,400.