[BRONTE, CHARLOTTE]. Villette. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1853.
First edition. In three volumes. Leather-bound in slipcase. Hardcover. Octavo (190 x 120 mm.), pp. vol. I: [iv], 324; vol. II: [iv], 319 [1]; vol. III: [iv], 350, [2]. Handsomely bound in contemporary speckled calf by Upham and Beet (their small ticket to front pastedowns); twin contrasting lettering-pieces in second and fourth spine compartments; marbled page edges and endpapers. Issued without half-titles. Bound without publisher's catalogue. Printed by Stewart and Murray, Old Bailey, London. Condition: Sympathetically re-backed retaining the original boards, the covers nicely preserved with some light wear to points; contents largely clean with some light foxing mostly restricted to endleaves; without previous ownership markings.
Notes: A very nice set of what is thought by some, most notably George Eliot and Virginia Woolf, to be Charlotte Bronte's finest novel. Sadleir 349; Wolff 828.
