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SPLENDID ILLUSTRATED EDITION
OF
THE BOOK OF THE PASSIONS.
BY G. P. R. JAMES, ESQ.
Author of * Attila,’ “ The Gipsy,” &c. &c.
In one handsome Royal Octavo Volume, printed on fine paper, with Sixteen
beautiful Engravings, done on Steel, from Designs by the best Artists ; and bound
in Extra Embossed Cloth, or Morocco Extra with Gilt Edges.
THE NOVELS
JANE AUSTEN;
CONTAINING
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY,
EMMA, AND
NORTHANGER ABBEY.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE,
MANSFIELD PARK,
PERSUASION,
COMPLETE IN ONE LARGE VOLUME.
Bound in elegant Embossed Cloth, or neatly half bound with Calf
backs and corners.
Miss Avsten’s novels are among the most original that have appeared since the
6 Amelia” of Fielding. We see in them no traces of thoughts, or incidents, or cha¬
racters, supplied by other writers; they are self-suggested throughout. As a picture
of the habits of the provincial middle classes thirty years ago, they are as true to
life as the master-pieces of Gainsborough, possessing all his exactness and literal
fidelity, without his coarse vigour. No one makes so much of a rustic pic-nic ; 1m¬
parts such a piquant flavour to the gossip of country cousins; or portrays a village
ss Mrs. Candor” with such skill and whimsical effect, without verging on caricature,
as Miss Austen. She makes as free of the old maid’s tea-table, and Jets us into all
the secrets of the Lady of the Manor’s coterie. She has no heroes or heroines, in
the ordinary acceptation of the term; her dramatis persone are for the most part
of a homely, quiescent, every-day caste; yet they uniformly interest us, being
worked out with uncommon ingenuity, and their veriest common-places turned to
humorous account. Miss Austen never affects the romantic or imaginative. She
has no highly-wrought scenes of passion or pathos; no startling surprises, or melo¬
dramatic contrasts; but finishes up to nature, without once going beyond it. Her
dialogues are remarkable for their ease, and point, and archness, and so exquisitely
characteristic as almost to induce the conviction that they had been overheard by
the writer, and taken down in short-hand. Those who have read “ Emma,” and
more especially “ Mansfield Park,” will have little hesitation in placing Miss Aus¬
ten in the same rank with Goldsmith; for, like him, she is the most social and un¬
ambitious of novelists, and scatters over the homeliest subjects a thousand artless,
inimitable graces. How perfect is her description of the gipsy-party on the village
common; and of the broad shady oak in Mansfield Park, under which the young
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